Although the first electric guitars were commercially available from 1932, it was a number of years before they became adopted by blues musicians. The key figure in the emergence of electric blues was the debonair T-Bone Walker (1910-75). Although he was the first great electric stylist, Walker was not the only figure to play electric guitar in the 1930s. Robert Jr. Lockwood and Tampa Red had also discovered the power of electricity.

Born in Texas, Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker first worked in Dallas as a lead boy for Blind Lemon Jefferson, helping him to get around the city and earn a living. When he began playing himself, Walker imitated the work and style of Scrapper Blackwell and was also impressed Lonnie Johnson. He made his first recordings in 1929 and in 1930s played duets with Charlie Christian, set to emerge later as the first widely influential electric guitars in jazz. In 1934, Walker moved to Los Angeles where he worked with blues and jazz groups and experimented with electric instruments. Eventually, at the beginning of the 1940s, he adopted the electric guitar professionally. In 1942with "Mean Old World" and "I Got a Break, Baby" he moved toward creating his own special identity. His solo tone is brittle and has affinities with Charlie Christian's style. Some of Walker's jazz-chordal passage sound similar to those used by Django Reinhardt, but he also developed a particular way of using brass-style stabbed comping. His fluent use of scales and triplet-feel laid part of the foundations for sophisticated modern electric soloing.

In 1947, Walker recorded some of his finest material including the evocative "Call It Stormy Monday," which became a major hit. Against a laid-back rhythm section, Walker Plays a supple, laconic solo with chopped, rhythmic fills.  His smooth voice, jazzy soloing, and brass backing arrangements placed him worlds apart from his blues contemporaries. On the fast swing of "Lonesome Woman Blues" he plays riffs, and "Vacation Blues" has sound similar to jazz soloing with added strings bending. "Too Much Trouble Blues" runs two notes at the Same pitch against each other to produce a lifting, rhythmic effect, a technique that would later be adopted by rock 'n' roll players.

In his long career, Walker also recorded some exceptional instrumentals, including "T-Bone Jumps Again" (1946) and "Two Bone and a Pick" (1956), both of which demonstrate the abilities that put him in a league of his own.

During in 1940s, guitarists all over the America started using electric guitars. One was Robert Jr. Lockwood, based in the South, who acquired an electric guitar at the end of the 1930s. He appeared with the singer Sonny Boy Williamson In the radio show KFAA King Biscuit Time in the 1940s, the first black radio station to play blues.

Muddy waters

Born in Mississippi, Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield, 1915   83) started playing slide guitar in the early 1930s, emulating Son House. On "I Be's Troubled" (1941), he plays slide with driving funky rhythms and chopped muting. Working in clubs in Chicago, where he had moved in 1942, Waters soon realized that he needed an electric guitar to be heard properly. After starting to record for the Chess Brothers in 1947, his first hit "I Can't Be Satisfied" was based on "I Be's Troubled."

In 1948, in a duo with Ernest "Big" Crawford on double bass, his "I Can't Be Satisfied" (1948) and its B-side "I Feel like Goin' Home," captured a city-wide audience with its magnetically sensual vocals which combined with novel electric slide. Waters used a resonant open tuning and played with a direct melodic and rhythmic technique; his approach played a major part in establishing Delta-influenced electric blues.

He broke through to a national audience in the 1950s, writing and arranging classic standards. After recording "Rollin' Stone" (1950) solo, using a muted rhythm with short distorted riffs, he started to work with bigger lineups. With "Long Distance Call" (1951), he plays in a trio with harmonica and bass, and mimics train and phone sounds. The measured simplicity of "Honey Bee" (1951), with Jimmy Rogers on guitar, sees slide creating buzzing effects over guitar chords. "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" (1954) has a full group lineup playing powerful stop-start rhythms.

Over succeeding years, Waters became the leading figure in Chicago blues and his group recorded classics such as "I Just Want To Make Love to You" (1954) and "Got M) Mojo Working" (1956). His instrumental lineups were templates for blues groups and helped to place the guitar at tin' forefront of popular music.
 
Blues elements

Blues is based around three chords and a twelve-bar repeating structure. In the key of D, this starts with four bars of D, followed by two bars of G, two bars of D and two bars of A, and finishes with two bars of A. There are variants, and prewar blues structures can be irregular, without a sense of fixed bars and lengths. The "key" of D is not a major scale, but a loose, pentatonic structure based on the notes D, F, A, G, and C, with added notes such as H, Fit, Git, and B, and bending giving in-between notes. Guitarists often tuned their instruments to an open D, G, E, or A major chord to play slide, moving up and down the strings using lines, chords, and partial two-note lines in parallel thirds and fourths, as in the example below.

Electric delta styles

A character who look the smoldering earthiness of the South and established himself in the north was John Lee Hooker (b. 1917), who moved to detroit in 1943. Hooker often drives just one or two scratchy, abrasive chords with rattling strings and pushes notes into primal licks with great effect. The unusual "Boogie Chillen" (1948) has a seductive primitive resonance; the whole structure is based on one chord, with a slide excursion backed by double bass. "I lobo Blues" (1 949) and "Crawling Kingsnake” (1949) both conjure up the Delta. On later tracks, such as "Dimples" (1956), he snaps distinctive lower notes to end vocal phrases.

Elmore James (1918-63) stands out as a legendary electric slid player with "Dust My Broom" (1952). The unforgettable slide figure is his own extension of Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust M) Broom." James continued to develop variants on this idea, using an approach that is subtly rhythmic and wildly atmospheric.

Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett, b. 1910) injected a rough ferocity into the-blues. His recordings from Memphis in 1951-52, with Willie Johnson's added edge, were followed in 1954 by work with Hubert Sumlin in Chicago. "Smokestack Lightnin'" (1956), based on Patton's "Moon Coin' down," is now a staple of the blues repertoire.

B.B. King

"B. B." King (b. 1925) has become one of the most famous electric blues guitarists in the world. Hark in life he admired Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson, but later came under the spell of his idol, T-Bone Walker, and absorbed ideas from Ins cousin Bukka White. He- also drew from jazz guitarists such as Charlie Christian and, in his efforts to emulate advanced soloists, created his own more direct style in relation to his voice. King eventually established himself in Memphis in 1948, playing on the radio station WDIA. He built a way of playing that does not involve the use of block chords for vocal backing or rhythms; instead, the guitar becomes a melodic counterpart to his voice, often using short expressive, hallmark phrase-. Two years after his first record, "Miss Martha King" (1949), he had a hit with the slow tempo"3 O'clock Blues" (1951), on which his distinctive' fills and solo produce a colorful tone over an arrangement with sustained brass chords.

"Woke up This Morning" (1954) is backed by a big band over which King plays a rhythmic, distorted chord intro contrasted with jazzy comping in a completely different tone.

"You Upset Me Baby" (1954) opens with swinging lines and has a melodic solo full of bending and sustain, drawing on jazz phrasing, while one of King's best-loved pieces, "Sweet Little Angel" (1956), has expressive fills and a solo built around phrases with string bending.

Genres & regions

There was an explosion of talent all over the country in the 1940s and 1950s. Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins (1912-82) started recording in the 1940s. He went on to produce rocky, electric blues numbers with fluent soloing such as "Highway Blues" (1953) which has liquid glissando, boogie lines, and chords and soloing, and the exceptional electric blues track "Hopkins' Sky Hop" (1954). With changes in fashion and the rise of rock 'n' roll, Hopkins gradually sank into obscurity. On the West Coast, Lowell Fulson (b. 1921) laid down his best-known number, "Three O'clock Blues" (1948). The young prodigy Johnny "Guitar" Watson (1935-96) spent time in the studios in the 1950s recording many tracks, among them the amazing "Three Hours Past Midnight". Texan Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (1924 93) combined country elements with blues, and his outstanding playing on "Okie Dokie Stomp" (1954) is full of fresh, swinging inventiveness. A simple style of muted boogie blues took Jimmy Reed (1925-76) to the top. Working with guitarist Eddie Taylor (1923-85) he had a string of hits from the 1950s. The 1950s also saw the start of Albert King's career.

New Orleans had its own regional flavor: Guitar Slim (Eddie Jones, 1926-59) produced "The Things I Used to Do" (1954) and "The Story of My Life." Slim was a great showman, often performing using a 200-ft (60-m) guitar cord so that he could walk outside the building still playing.

A regional genre called "Swamp Blues" emerged from the coastal areas of the South. It is associated with Louisiana and characterized by laid-back, relaxed tempos, echo and reverb, giving it a distant, somber sound. Major players of this swamp sound included Lightnin' Slim (Otis Hicks, 1913-83) and Slim Harpo (James Moore, 1924-70), who recorded "I'm A Kingbee" (1957) and later worked with Lightnin' Slim.

Otis rush

Chicago was full of talented guitarists as the scene flourished during the 1950s. After establishing himself in the city, Otis Rush (b. 1934) started recording music with vibrant, innovative guitar parts that have a unique character. His recording career began in 1954, and he had a breakthrough with "I Can't Quit You, Baby" (1956).This was followed by a highly creative period that produced "All Your Love" (1958), with its beautiful, potent arpeggiated figures and bright, warm, characterful soloing, and the atmospheric "Double Trouble" (1957).

Along with Magic Sam and Buddy Guy, Rush became one of the "West Side" players associated with clubs in Chicago's western neighborhoods.

Freddie king

Born in Texas, Freddie King (1934-76) is one of the figures who virtually created a large part of the soloing vocabulary of guitarists from the 1960s onward. Inspired by Robert Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, and B.B. King, he started playing at a very young e, moved to Chicago in 19S4, and began recording in 1956. His all-instrumental album Let's Hide Away and Dance Away (1961) is refreshingly unusual.

Playing with a thumbpick and metal fingerpicks; King's sound is unmistakably metallic without losing sonority. Rhythmically adventurous passages and elliptical phrasing unravel chorus after chorus of the sheer invention and musical content that set him apart from many blues soloists, whose improvisational imagination can tend to be limited. King moves beyond licks and expands his vocabulary by transcending pentatonic and chord-based soloing ideas toward a freer scalar expression. His bright, bubbly extemporizations are unmistakable, and he is able to shift from punchy staccato to gentle passages with a playful, light touch.

King's compositions, written with keyboard player Sonny Thompson, are exciting and full of ideas. The tour deforce "Hide Away" (1960) sparkles with a torrent of riffs and two-note melodic fills, as it changes time and builds and releases tension, while on "Sidetracked" (1960), he constructs his solo with a wonderful swing in his timing.

The stumble

Recorded in Cincinnati in April 1961, "The Stumble" was written by King and pianist Sonny. Thompson. Its form is a refreshing variation on the twelve-bar blues, comprising 16 bars consisting of an initial eight bars and an answering eight bars. King plays an original expressive line, with a rhythmic structure and flowing triplets, swinging blues bends, and offbeat ninth chords. The lead-in phrase ends on the first beat of the first bar. From bar nine, the band stops on the first beat, leaving King alone to play phrases; and after it comes back in, King plays phrases with sixths on bars 13 and 14.
Buddy guy

Growing up in Louisiana, "Buddy" Guy (b. 1936) was formatively influenced by local musicians such as Guitar Slim. Guy moved to Chicago in 1957 and made his first recordings the following year. While he acknowledged influences such as Muddy Waters and B.B. King, his style is unique and individualistic. His recordings from the beginning of the 1960s are explosive, tortured, and full of an irregular phrasing across the beat that can be almost devoid of melodic invention yet full of unexpected variety. He achieves this by taking an unusual approach to stock phrases and tension release. He does not bend at obvious moments, emphasizing expressive points in his own way. With dynamics, tone and color, his music is varied. He has a wide range of tones, ranging from a shattering physical energy to a strange, flutelike breathiness. His breakthrough came with "First Time 1 Met the Blues" (1960) which displays his urgent, searching vocals and fiery chip fills. Guy's sense of compressed manic intensity comes across in all kinds of arrangements and tempos The jiving "Slop Around" (1960) features wild, high tremolo chords and a feeling of zaniness, and on "Broken-Hearted Blues" (1960) he takes a querulous emotional solo to convey instability.

His tone is unmistakable on the electrifying, iridescent intro riff for 'Let Me Love You Baby" and on the voodoo chill of "I Got a Strange Feeling" (1960), with its eery intro sound and dry fills with little sustain which, along with his choked incoherence, help project fear. His touch comes across on "Stone Crazy" (1961), too, where the guitar answers vocals with great variety and he squeezes the notes on his solo with expressive feeling. With its muted arpeggio figure, the instrumental "Skippin'"(1961) is light and melodic, and "Worried Mind" (1963) displays a gentle delicacy. The smooth "Moanin"' (1963) shows him in a jazzy context, playing unexpected turns of  phrase.