Big Walter Price born 2 August1914

Big Walter Price (August 2, 1914 - March 8, 2012) was an American musician (piano, vocals) and songwriter of the Texas blues. Though he never had a national hit, he is often referred to as a blues legend. Walter himself did not see himself exclusively as a blues singer, he considered himself more versatile than that. 

Walter Travis Price was born in Gonzales, Texas and brought up by his aunt, who would beat him when he didn't pick enough cotton. He described his childhood in Gonzales as "horrible". Around the age of eleven, he moved to San Antonio and lived in big cities ever since. "I never have fooled with cotton no more". He received very little schooling ("first grade is as far as I ever went") and worked at all sorts of low-paying jobs until he got involved in music in the 1940s. That's when he began writing songs (all of Price's recordings are his own compositions) and learned to play the piano in the key of C. 

His first musical experience was with a gospel group called the Northern Wonders. He started playing barrelhouse swag and jive-talking blues, and in San Antonio, Junior Moore and Spot Barnett were the original Thunderbirds who made up the group.  Price was already in his early forties when he made his first records, for Bob Tanner's TNT label in San Antonio. Three TNT singles were released in 1955, the first of which, "Calling Margie", sold quite well locally. They were credited to "Big Walter and his Thunderbirds". Soon Price would call himself "Big Walter the Thunderbird". 

                                   

Later in 1955, Walter moved to Houston and joined his friend Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown at Don Robey's Peacock label. Of the five Peacock singles that were issued in 1956-57, the first two are the best known and also the strongest sellers. "Shirley Jean" sounds like an early swamp pop song and was later recorded by several "real" swamp pop artists from Louisiana. On "Pack Fair And Square" (clearly inspired by "Flip Flop And Fly"), Price was backed by a few members of Little Richard's band, the Upsetters (Grady Gaines, Clifford Burks, Nat Douglas). The song was revived in the 1970s by the J. Geils Band and Nine Below Zero. 

In 1958, Price recorded two singles for Eddie Shuler's Goldband label in Lake Charles, LA, "San Antonio" and "Oh Ramona". John Broven calls these records "good rumbustious efforts" in his book "South To Louisiana", but they failed to sell. In the 1960s Price saw further unsuccessful releases on several labels, including Myrl, Global, Tear Drop, and Jetstream. Big Walter’s biggest fan base was in Europe, where he felt at home. Germany had always welcomed him, and his fans sang along with him while he belted out his songs. 

The 1980s saw three Big Walter LP releases with previously unissued material (on Lunar, Ace and P-Vine), but according to Price, he never received any royalties. Four CD's issued between 1994 and 2003 but were considered as bootlegs by Big Walter. During his career, he appeared in the zombie movie Sugar Hill as the preacher (1974). He also worked as a disc jockey at KCOH radio station in Houston, and he owned a music store and the Dinosaur Publishing Company. 

Big Walter received twenty-six proclamations from the city of Houston, and June 6, 1989, was declared “Big Walter Day.” That same year he was honored as Artist of the Year at the Juneteenth Blues Festival. In 1998 Congresswoman Shelia Jackson-Lee presented his family with one more proclamation to “pay tribute to one of Houston’s best-known blues legends” and stated that Big Walter “found music to be a consolation for the troubles of life and strove to bring gospel and blues to others as a gift of the spirit.” 

He was always very bitter about the way he was treated by record companies and had been involved in several lawsuits. In spite of his lack of education, Price was always supremely confident. At his 90th birthday party in 2004, he launched the release of the first of four CD's issued with his authorization, on the Sons Of Sunshine label. These four CD's (46 tracks altogether) contain more or less his complete studio recordings. 

He died in a Houston Nursing Home, Texas March 8, 2012 aged 94 (though he claimed to be 97). 

(Edited from Texas State Historical Society & This Is My story)