James David Walker Jr. (August 13, 1921 – December 20, 2012), better known by his stage name Jimmy McCracklin, was an American pianist, singer, and songwriter.
His style contained West Coast blues, Jump blues, and R&B. Over a career that spanned seven decades, he said he had written almost a thousand songs and had recorded hundreds of them. McCracklin recorded over 30 albums, and earned four gold records. Tom Mazzolini of the San Francisco Blues Festival said of him, "He was probably the most important musician to come out of the Bay Area in the post-World War II years."
McCracklin was born James David Walker Jr. Sources differ as to whether he was born in Elaine, Arkansas or St. Louis, Missouri. He joined the United States Navy in 1938, later settled in Richmond, California, and began playing at the local Club Savoy owned by his sister-in-law Willie Mae "Granny" Johnson. The room-length bar served beer and wine, and Granny Johnson served home-cooked meals of greens, ribs, chicken, and other southern cuisine.
A house band composed of Bay Area based musicians alternated with and frequently backed performers such as B. B. King, Charles Brown, and L. C. Robinson. Later in 1963 he would write and record a song "Club Savoy" on his I Just Gotta Know album. His recorded a debut single for Globe Records, "Miss Mattie Left Me", in 1945, and "Street Loafin' Woman" in 1946. McCracklin recorded for a number of labels in Los Angeles and Oakland, prior to joining Modern Records in 1949-1950. He formed a group called Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters in 1946, with guitarist Robert Kelton, later replaced by Lafayette Thomas who remained with the group until the early 1960s.
His popularity increased after appearing on American Bandstand in support of his self-written single "The Walk" (1957), subsequently released by Checker Records in 1958. It went to No. 5 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 7 on the pop chart, after more than 10 years of McCracklin selling records in the black community on a series of small labels. Jimmy McCracklin Sings, his first solo album, was released in 1962, in the West Coast blues style. In 1962, McCracklin recorded "Just Got to Know" for his own Art-Tone label in Oakland; the record made No. 2 on the R&B chart. Throughout that decade he recorded prolifically and with undiminished creativity and wit for Imperial and Minit, enjoying further chart success in 1965 with Think.
In 1967, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas had success with "Tramp", a song credited to McCracklin and Lowell Fulson. Salt-n-Pepa made a hip-hop hit out of the song in 1987. Oakland Blues (1968) was an album arranged and directed by McCracklin, and produced by World Pacific. For a brief period in the early 1970s McCracklin ran the Continental Club in Oakland. He booked blues acts such as T-Bone Walker, Irma Thomas, Big Joe Turner, Big Mama Thornton, and Etta James. The 70s was a lean time for many blues artists,but McCracklin retained his place in the market by diversifying into funky soul blues, as heard on the very fine Stax album Yesterday Is Gone, produced by Al Jackson and Willie Mitchell.
It is as a songwriter that McCracklin will be remembered longest. In compositions such as My Answer, Shame, Shame, Shame and The Bitter and the Sweet, he grimly mapped the pitfalls and mudslides of relationships in crisis and love gone wrong, and his best-known songs in that vein – Just Got to Know and Think – have become blues standards. The rollcall of artists who have used his compositions includes the Beatles, Elvis Presley, BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, Salt 'N' Pepa, Prince and MC Hammer.
He died in San Pablo, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, on December 20, 2012, after a long illness, aged 91.
(Edited from Wikipedia & The Guardian)
