Early influence

The first hits

The early/middle 1950s

Rock 'n' roll

Selected discography

California Guitar Star

EARLY INFLUENCES & DEVELOPMENT OF THE CALIFORNIA SOUND:

While the state of Texas gets ample due as the home of many of the first-generation modern blues guitarists, California must be cited as the place where some of the best players earned their stripes and developed a sound that is alive and well to the present day. Among the most recognized guitarists who established careers in California, are T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson, Johnny Guitar Watson, B.B. King, Carl Pete "Guitar" Lewis, Jimmy Nolen, Lafayette Thomas, Jimmy Wilson, and Phillip Walker.

One of the most distinctive post-war guitarists to follow the Texas-to-California migration was Pee Wee Crayton (Connie Curtis Crayton). Pee Wee was born near Rockdale Texas on Dec 18, 1914 but grew up in Austin. During his youth in Austin, Pee Wee played several instruments; the ukulele/guitar, banjo and trumpet, but his early musical endeavours were strictly as an amateur. Surprisingly his main musical interest was not in the likes of Lemon Jefferson or Texas Alexander, but in jazz bands such as Duke Ellington's and Louis Armstrong's.

In his early 20's, Pee Wee moved to the Bay Area in California to take advantage of work being offered in the shipyards there. While Crayton had acquired some rudimentary guitar skills in Texas, he did not attempt to earn a living as a musician for the remainder of the 1930's. In California, Pee Wee found employment at an automotive dealership and when the United States became actively involved in the Second World War, he moved to Oakland to work in the Navy yards. His first guitar purchase there was an acoustic resonator model and by Pee Wee's own account, he did not play it well.

By the early 1940's, California was becoming a focal point for changes in both jazz and blues, and much of the music recorded and played there at that time bears a unique sound identified by relatively sophisticated arrangements augmented with a horn section, and features a strong pre-rock and roll beat.

Lionel Hampton can be credited in some measure with this development, partly due to Hamp's off-the-wall (but pre-conceived) presentation in his live shows, and in part due to the skilled arrangers who sat on his bandstand (Marshall Royal, Milt Buckner, Illinois Jacquet). Hampton's band also had a tendency to feature many blues-based numbers from their book, albeit in the context of a larger jazz orchestra. Worth noting is that Hampton was at one time an employee of California band leader and saxophonist Les Hite. In 1939, Hite hired T-Bone Walker (as a vocalist) for his band. Much later, T-Bone's influence on Pee Wee Crayton would surface.

Moreover, many arrangers had migrated to the West Coast to write charts for the orchestras in the Hollywood picture studios and for the bands in expensive nightclubs, and their influence was to be felt strongly in the horn sections of the smaller bands that were playing the Rhythm and Blues styled music that was beginning to emerge.

On another tangent, California was seeding the emergence of the "smooth" night-club singer and jazz-trio approach to popular music, most exemplified by the now-resident Nat Cole, and the equally influential Charles Brown. Cole's influence was to become vast by the late 1940's, and he would cross over to the pop music chart market on a scale that had not been witnessed prior. One of the most recognizable aspects of Pee Wee Crayton's work was his easy light vocal style, and his singing and phrasing on much of his material borrowed heavily from Nat Cole.

Several other factors are relevant to the development of California's fertile music scene and to the development of Pee Wee Crayton as musician and electric guitarist. Advances in electronic technology in the late 1930's had spawned the amplified guitar, and one of the instrument's earliest and greatest talents was exploiting that technology. Charlie Christian was witnessed by jazz promoter and impressario John Hammond (after a recommendation by jazz pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams) in Oklahoma City in 1939, and Hammond soon after auditioned Charlie to Benny Goodman.

Goodman responsed so enthusiastically that he hired Christian for his band almost immediately. Christian proceded to make a series of recordings with Goodman's Band (1939 thru 1941) that stand up today as some of the greatest performances in jazz. It was Charlie's flying single-string runs that inspired Crayton (and later, B.B. King) to take up the guitar. (Note: Christian was from Dallas and was 5 years younger than Crayton. Christian's early influences were quite possibly Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang.)

Ironically, T-Bone Walker had met and played (or danced) with Charlie Christian in the middle 1930's in Oklahoma. Around 1936, Walker moved to California and within a few years, was developing his own approach to the amplified guitar, independent of Christian's work. Unlike Pee Wee Crayton, T-Bone had a prior history as an established musician from his days in Texas where he had played with Blind Lemon Jefferson. Some elements of Walker's Texas roots carried over to his technique on the electric guitar but ultimately he developed a sound that became completely his own.

Additionally, while T-Bone was reluctant to credit Charlie Christian as a direct influence, there are some similarities between the instrumental approaches of these two musicians, foremost the upper-string picking as the lead instrument on each number, and the open-ended soloing. T-Bone's playing however, reflected a rhythmic syncopation that mirrored his talent as a dancer (Walker established himself professionally first as a dancer, and only later would develop his singing and guitar playing) and he always bridged his solos with distinctive chorded fills. Christian's approach was far more legato and fluid than Walker's, and was completely free of the rhythmic mechanisms that Walker so often favoured. While Charlie Christian was the archtype guitarist (he did not sing) and singular jamming jazzman, T-Bone's concept embraced the total entertainer as singer, guitarist, dancer, and showman.

Pee Wee never had the opportunity to see Christian since Charlie passed away in 1942 from Tuberculosis (at the age of 23). While he came from a very musical family, Charlie's fluency on his instrument was not an accident of birth. Christian was a crack pool player and this might account for his dexterity on the strings. Pee Wee later learned to develop a similar fluency on his guitar and not coincidentally, he was also an avid golpher. If there was another trait that Charlie Christian and Pee Wee Crayton shared, it was their love of the party and good times. Christian's appetite for all night jams in New York clubs is legendary and reputedly, he was toking joints while on his deathbed in a New York Sanitarium. Pee Wee admitted on more than one occasion that he liked to be the centre of attraction when all the women were around, and that he sometimes ignored his best career interests in favour of the ladies.

Fortunately, T-Bone Walker got to Oakland and Crayton saw him play there in 1944. After seeing Walker's show, Crayton set his mind on becoming a guitar playing star and he rapidly befriended Bone. T-Bone wound up staying at Pee Wee's home for a month during his gig in Oakland, and Crayton capitalized on the time by learning as much as he could from his mentor. Pee Wee bought an Epiphone electric guitar and amplifier and quickly picked up the rudiments of Walker's technique.

Within the next couple of years, Pee Wee Crayton became well-enough known around Oakland night clubs that he was able to record as a sideman with pianist Ivory Joe Hunter. In 1947, Crayton recorded for Four Star records in Los Angeles but the sides did not make much of an impact. Although he was 33 at this time, Pee Wee's youthful good looks became the main attraction for his club following of mostly women fans, and his live appearances generated enough attention for him to be recommended to the Bihari brothers of Modern Records.

THE FIRST HITS:

T-Bone Walker was becoming the king of guitar in California in the mid 1940's and the Biharis were looking for an artist with a similar sound who could cash in on their own label. Pee Wee's first recording on Modern was a popular Walker number "I'm Still in Love with You", a silky ballad with the Charles Brown/Nat Cole sound, obviously aimed at his women listeners. But it was a rewrite of a tune that was made popular by the Erskine Hawkins Jazz Orchestra, "After Hours" that earned Crayton his earliest fame. Crayton named his version "Blues After Hours".

The Hawkins original of "After Hours" is a slow rolling blues featuring the band's pianist Avery Parrish, up front of the orchestra, and the song invokes the ambience of a smoke-clearing pre-sunrise club closing. Pee Wee maintained this relaxed tone on his own recording, substituting his lazy-paced guitar rhythm on the lower strings for Parrish's rumbling piano. The song makes an instant impression on first hearing, and doubtless its easy-to-remember bass line contributed to its success for Crayton.

The chorus on "Blues After Hours" demonstrates one of Pee Wee's marked techniques, mainly his rapid chording high up near the bridge on the top strings of his instrument. During the 1950's as Pee Wee's playing became much more aggressive, he would feature this strong chugging device as a way of maintaining the driving rhythm that characterized his fast tempo numbers.

Considering that Pee Wee only began playing guitar earnestly in 1944 and by 1948 had a top-of-the-chart hit, it is remarkable that Crayton acquired success so early on; all of this without a vocal. His teacher, T-Bone Walker had been paying attention, and must have been influenced by Crayton's accomplishment, for Walker recorded a series of instrumental-only numbers during his tenure with Imperial in the early 1950s.

Not surprisingly, Pee Wee Crayton's followup hit with Modern in 1949 was also an instrumental, "Texas Hop". This tune is a jump blues with a striding boogie rhythm played at a relatively fast tempo. Of major significance on this recording is the use of the honking tenor sax as a front-line instrument. This would become a characteristic device in most of the music that was termed R & B, that would develop during the late 1940's and early 1950's. On "Texas Hop", Pee Wee employs strong T-Bone stylings, using the jagged arpeggios on the top strings that Walker was now famous for.

On the strength of his 2 first big hits, Pee Wee toured the country as part of a Rhythm & Blues show and became a featured star within his musical genre. By now (1950 - 51) he was attracting competition, for California was also the home of Lowell Fulson, and Clarence Gatemouth Brown had created a stir back home in Texas (Gate was also strongly influenced by seeing T-Bone Walker). B.B. King had also moved to the west coast and in a few years, he would begin to rack up a string of hits on Modern Records' RPM subsidiary label.

THE EARLY/MIDDLE 1950s:

B.B. King was becoming a favourite of Modern's promotional staff and Pee Wee was dropped by the label in 1951. Pee Wee had made over 2 dozen sides for Modern. The company that next recorded Crayton was Aladdin Records who had already cut 4 sides by Gatemouth Brown in a similar vein to that of Crayton and T-Bone Walker. Aladdin had the foresight to hire talented arranger Maxwell Davis, one of the pioneers of the smooth horn arrangements that would become stamped on almost all of B.B. King's middle 1950's hits.

Pee Wee's first side for Aladdin, cut in 1951, was "When It Rains It Pours", an almost exact knock-off right down to the guitar lines, of the slow ballads that T-Bone Walker had been performing for the last 10 years. Fortunately, the number is distinguished by Crayton's high clear tenor. In contrast to the racous exciting presentations that Crayton was delivering on stage, "When It Rains" appears to have been aimed at the smooth cross-over chart market that was being exploited by singers like Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine, and Frank Sinatra.

Despite the quest for a hit in a chart market increasingly dominated by singers, Pee Wee found it difficult to find regular work in the early 1950's. Ironically it was Nat Cole's regular studio guitarist John Collins (a fine subtle swing guitarist who had cut his teeth with the great jazz trumpeter Roy Eldridge in the 1930's) who showed Crayton how to play some of the smooth guitar voicings that record producers were after. Several personal mishaps also contributed to Crayton's lack of musical success at this time and it would be a couple of years before he recorded again.

In 1953, Pee Wee cut some sides for Dolphin's of Hollywood. Dolphin's was a small company founded by John Dolphin, a car salesman, music retailer and entrepreneur who plugged his artists by hiring a DJ to play the music from the front window of his retail outlet. While Dolphin had some unorthodox techniques for marketing his artists, he was certainly a pioneer in fostering the emergence of the independent record label (he was murdered in 1958 by a dissatisified song writer - Dolphin preferred to pay cash on the spot for songs rather than dole out royalties) and no doubt gave needed exposure to many artists in urban black popular music who would otherwise have been overlooked by the larger record companies of the time.

Pee Wee's Dolphin sides are an amalgam of influences from the 40's and 50's, as Dolphin's would have been attempting to cash in on whatever trend was saleable. These include complete T-Bone Walker covers, an attempt at Slim and Slam's novelty material from the 40's (jazz musicians Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart), and some Nat Cole inflected singing. Nonetheless, all of it comes off as straight Pee Wee Crayton, since no matter how much he tried to mimic other artists, Pee Wee always made a song his own. While none of the Dolphin titles were very good sellers, all of the material was made with Pee Wee's usual high standards.

Crayton's next label, Imperial Records, had recorded a number of sides by T-Bone Walker, continuing the tradition that Bone established a decade earlier (although Walker stated that his Imperial titles were never well-distributed and the company did nothing for his career). While Pee Wee managed to make a moderate impact at Imperial, the record sales did not duplicate his Modern success, even while his label-mates, Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis were scoring.

What is evident from Pee Wee's Imperial recordings is the change in his style, to reflect the New Orleans sound characterized by rippling piano and booting sax fill-ins. Pee Wee adapted his format well to the crescent city sound, but his success at this time was mostly due to the first-rate backing supplied by Imperial's house band under Dave Bartholomew. On these records, Pee Wee's guitar playing became markedly more aggressive in response to his driving backup group. Titles like "Do Unto Others" and "You Know-Yeah" demonstrate Pee Wee's patented machine gun breaks that Johnny Guitar Watson (another Modern Records stalwart) would emulate to precision about a year later.

Another player in the fray at this time was of course, Eddie Jones or "Guitar Slim". Slim's first titles with the Specialty label were recorded only a few months prior to Pee Wee Crayton's tenure at Imperial (Slim had also recorded for Imperial - in 1951 - but with little impact). Guitar Slim's "The Things I Used to Do" was a national hit in 1953 and its piercing up-front guitar line created a stamp that forever remained with the New Orleans sound. If Imperial were attempting to find a Guitar Slim surrogate with Crayton, then Pee Wee fit the bill with ease.

One factor that aided Crayton at these sessions was his change of instrument. By this time he had acquired the red Stratocaster (a gift from Leo Fender) that is usually seen on his promotional photographs, and it is quite visible in the photos that the pick guard is heavily scratched from Pee Wee's ferocious chording.

ROCK AND ROLL:

By the middle of the 1950's, the popular music landscape across the United States was changing in dramatic fashion. Artists like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent were putting a serious dent in the demand for blues singing guitarists and Pee Wee Crayton was not to be unaffected by this shift.

Pee Wee continued to tour during the middle 1950's and was featured in packaged shows with other guitarists like T-Bone Walker, where the show themes were promoted as duels between the guitar gladiators. The lack of steady work on the west coast however, prompted Pee Wee to re-locate in Detroit. Eastern fans had a larger appetite for guitarists and this resulted in a contract with Vee Jay Records, an organization who knew how to market their music to their target audience. In 1956 and 1957 Crayton cut a dozen sides for Vee Jay which showed that he had lost none of his flamboyant guitar technique. Best among these sides is the archtype slow blues, "The Telephone is Ringing" where it sounds as if Pee Wee destroyed his guitar strings in one take of the song.

Around 1960, Pee Wee returned to his home base in California but needed to supplement his career by taking non-musical jobs. He continued to record for a number of small labels in Los Angeles, including a reprise at Modern Records, but the Modern sides were not released at the time. Modern, to their credit, did issue an LP of Pee Wee's early material, and it became a focus for a younger generation of blues fans in North America and Europe. Crayton must have remained active musically throughout the 1960's, at least on a part-time basis, since he was invited to perform with the Johnny Otis Show at the 1970 Monterey Jazz Festival. As the listener can plainly hear, on his one recording from this live outing "The Things I Used to Do", Pee Wee was in top form.

Pee Wee made several sessions in the early 1970's which were issued on LP format, with some of the best players from the coast backing him. While Crayton's voice on these sides does not have the same high sting as his 1940's and 50's work, musically he is on top of his form and it is obvious that he still loved playing and performing. During this period Pee Wee also played on shows in California with Big Joe Turner and Big Mama Thornton. Big Joe's career was then undergoing another renaissance and Pee Wee backed him on at least one of the sessions cut for the Pablo Records label owned by the famous jazz impressario Norman Granz.

His last session was cut in 1983, only a couple of years prior to his death, and even though he was almost 70, his music on these sides does not show any signs of aging. Perhaps this is the mark of Pee Wee's musical legacy. As a fitting tribute, Pee Wee performed at the Chicago Blues Festival in June 1985. He died just a few weeks later. He is not to be forgotten.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:

(Listed chronologically roughly by date of recording)

Lonnie Johnson - "Steppin' on the Blues", Columbia CK 46221

(Probably the earliest blues/jazz guitar genius. These are Lonnie's early sides from the 1920's that show his technique to be far beyond anyone from that time. Mostly 12-string acoustic with Johnson's sweet bluesy vocals)

Eddie Lang - "Jazz Guitar Virtuoso", Yazoo 1059

(Eddie was one of the earliest 6-string pioneers of improvised jazz guitar on the acoustic instrument. This CD includes some of his duets with Lonnie Johnson from the late 1920's. Both artists (along with Django Reinhardt) influenced virtually every guitarist who followed)

Charlie Christian - "Genius of the Electric Guitar", Columbia VCK-40846

(This is where it started for the electric guitar. This CD is not blues but the material should be heard by anyone with an interest in the roots of modern jazz/blues guitar. This is the first of 2 volumes featuring Charlie's landmark recordings from 1939 - 1941. Some of the greatest jazz guitar on record)

Lionel Hampton - "Hamp: The Legendary Decca Recordings", GRP (Decca) GRD-2-652

(1940's sides including Dinah Washington, showing some roots of West Coast R & B within a big band)

T-Bone Walker - "The Complete Capitol/Black & White Recordings" Capitol CDP 7243 8 29379 2

(4-CD set of Bone's early electric sides from the 1940's, comprising the foundation of modern blues guitar. Contains the original of "Call It Stormy Monday")

T-Bone Walker - "The Complete Imperial Recordings, 1950 - 1954" Capitol CDP-7-96737-2

(2-CD set of T-Bone's followup label from his Capitol days. Commercially not as successful as his prior sides, but artistically peerless. If you like guitar players, don't pass this material by. B.B. King carved out his legacy on it.)

Pee Wee Crayton - "The Modern Legacy Vol 1", ACE CDCHD 612 (UK)

(Pee Wee's Modern sides recorded between 1948 and 1960, contains originals of "Blues After Hours" and "Texas Hop". Essential Pee Wee)

Various - "Blues Masters, Vol 3: Texas Blues", Rhino R2 71123

(Good cross section of Texas-born players. Includes the Modern original of "Texas Hop", plus others by T-Bone, Frankie Lee Sims, Gatemouth Brown, Freddy King, Zuzu Bollin)

Pee Wee Crayton - "The Complete Aladdin & Imperial Recordings" CAPITOL CDP 7243 8 36292 2

(Covers period from 1951 - 1955, contains When It Rains It Pours. First rate guitar playing at fierce tempo plus Pee Wee's chart-oriented ballad sides)

Various - "Texas Guitar Killers", Capitol CDP 7243 8 33915 2

(2-CD compilation of 1940's/50's Aladdin & Imperial sides. Crayton, Lowell Fulson, T-Bone, Gatemouth Brown, Lightnin' Hopkins, Smokey Hogg. Only 2 tracks by Pee Wee and both are duplicated from the "Complete Aladdin & Imperial Recordings". The remainder of this collection is first rate, especially the 4 rare Gatemouth Brown Aladdin titles-Gate's first records.)

B.B. King - "Singin' the Blues/The Blues", Flair-Virgin V2-86296

(Good sampling of B's early work for Modern Records)

Various - "Texas Music Vol 1: Postwar Blues Combos", Rhino R2 71781

(Nice cross section of mostly 1950's Texas guitarists. Crayton, T-Bone, Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Zuzu Bollin)

Various - "Blues from Dolphin's of Hollywood", Specialty SPCD-2172-2 (Fantasy)

(Crayton, Percy Mayfield, Memphis Slim, Jimmy Witherspoon, Floyd Dixon. Nine tracks by Pee Wee from 1953 recorded for the Dolphin label in Hollywood)

Various - "The Best of Duke-Peacock Blues", MCA MCAD-10667

(Good low-priced compilation of artists from the Duke/Peacock label, with nice cover photo of early Clarence Gatemouth Brown. Lots of Texas-flavoured guitar. Gatemouth, Pete "Guitar" Lewis, Larry Davis, Fention Robinson, Otis Rush, Jr. Parker, Bobby Bland, Willie Mae Thornton etc.)

Various - "The Real Blues Brothers", DCC Compact Classics DZS026

(Anthology of blues artists who recorded for Vee Jay label in the 1950's. Contains Crayton's masterpiece "Telephone is Ringing" plus others by Brownie & Sonny, John Lee Hooker, Eddie Taylor, Memphis Slim, Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, Billy Boy Arnold)

The Johnny Otis Show - "Live in Monterey", Epic/Legacy EK53628

(Contains 1 title by Crayton as part of the Otis live show in 1970. Other artists from same period: Cleanhead Vinson, Big Joe Turner, Little Esther, Ivory Joe Hunter plus Otis' son Shuggie, himself a great guitar player in the "California" mould.)

Pee Wee Crayton - "The Things I Used to Do", Vanguard VMD 6566

(A comeback session from recorded in 1971, mostly reprising his early hits. Pee Wee backed by a Los Angeles rhythm section showing he still has his guitar chops.)

Pee Wee Crayton - "The Sunset Blues Band", Liberty ?? Vinyl only.

(Sunset budget label recording for the United Artists/Liberty group from late 1960's or early 1970's featuring Pee Wee with session group. His name is not credited on the LP liner but fine outing nevertheless. Pee Wee admitted he did not know what happened to this material after he recorded it. Not re-released on CD as of this writing)

Big Joe Turner - "Stormy Monday", Pablo/Fantasy 2310-943

(1974 West coast session by Big Joe featuring Pee Wee Crayton and Cleanhead Vinson)

Pee Wee Crayton - "Early Hour Blues", Blind Pig 5052

(Pee Wee's last recordings from 1983/84 featuring top backup musicians)

Curtiss Clarke

Toronto - September, 1999