Pee wee crayton biography examples

Pee Wee Crayton was an icon and pioneer of modern blues guitar. With inspiration from jazz legend Charlie Christian and lessons from T-Bone Walker, Crayton helped define the emerging West Coast blues scene and electric blues guitar, and became a patriarch of both.

Connie Curtis Crayton (December 18, – June 25, ), known as Pee Wee Crayton, was an American R&B and blues guitarist and singer.

In his heyday late '40s to early '50s his popularity was second only to his mentor, T-Bone Walker, and his success preceded that of Lowell Fulson, Gatemouth Brown, and B. In he moved to Los Angeles. There he supplemented the inspiration of jazz guitar trailblazer Charlie Christian with personal tutelage by a man who would be a close friend till his passing thirty years later, the original electric blues guitar master, T-Bone Walker.

Crayton told interviewer John Breckow, "We got to be real good friends. T-Bone was gonna try to help me learn how to play. My timing was real bad. T-Bone helped me with my timing. He would play the piano or the bass and show me how to play in time. Pee Wee added some rawness to Walker's stylish blues approach, and chord knowledge gleaned from guitarist John Collins involving the use of four fingers.

Born Connie Curtis Crayton, 18 December , Liberty Hill, Texas Died 25 June , Los Angeles, California.

Pee Wee proudly stated, "I know how to play them big, pretty chords and where to put 'em at. In he broke through with the classic moody instrumental "Blues After Hours" and followed with the equally definitive hits, the swinging "Texas Hop" and vocal ballad "I Love You So. Though his great Modern sides have been reissued thoughtfully in England and Japan, their unavailability in the U.

They and his personal appearances established Pee Wee as a stalwart of the emerging L. I went across the country with a band that couldn't play five songs all the way through. Only thing I could play was the tunes I recorded.