Unfortunately - and amazingly, considering his huge popularity during his heyday - there are no known photographs of Little Walter performing with his own band in the 1950s that show his amplifier, either on a live gig or in the studio. Many of the people who were present on his gigs and studio sessions have been queried over the years - musicians Jimmy Rogers, Dave Myers, Louis Myers, and Jimmie Lee Robinson, among many others - but none of them were paying enough attention to Little Walter's equipment at the time (let alone their own) to remember any of the specifics of Little Walter's set-up when they were asked about it later.

There's also the issue of defining "The Little Walter sound". It's more-or-less generally accepted these days that Little Walter's signature harmonica sound was the harsh, heavily distorted sound of a cheap mic and an old tube amp pushed to its limits. But if one takes the time to listen to the recordings of Little Walter's amplified harp playing in chronological order, it becomes obvious that his sound changed noticably and sometimes dramatically from session to session, from the almost-acoustic sound of "Juke" and "Can't Hold On Much Longer", to the broken-kazoo rasp of "Rocker", and everything in between. In fact, close examination reveals that there were a lot more recordings made with a light-to-moderately amplified harmonica sound than there were with the over-driven, harshly distorted sound that so many latter-day harp players think of as 'the LW sound'. So although we may not know specifically what he was playing through on any given session, based on the ever-changing nature of his amplified harp sound on records, it does seem pretty clear that he went through a wide array of different amplifiers, and that there was no single microphone & amplifier combination that he settled on, or considered essential to acheiving his desired results.

When Little Walter himself was asked about it, he was unable to even remember the brand name of his favorite amplifier, let alone the model, and offered a somewhat confusing description of what it looked like. So unless a pile of Little Walter performance photos that has been buried in someone's closet for last half century suddenly comes to light, it appears that the precise identity of any of the many different amplifiers Little Walter undoubtedly used during his prime years will remain in the realm of educated guesses and wild speculation. It simply is not known with any certainty, and it would be wise to question the motives of anyone who claims otherwise - they're probably trying to sell you something.

Some diligent detective work has turned up a few possible candidates in the amplifier category though. According to several of the musicians who played in his bands, in the early '50s Walter had a portable P.A. system which he took on the road and used for both vocals and harp, which makes sense - guitar amps were for guitars, and P.A. systems were for microphones. As a singer/harp player, Little Walter needed something not just for harp, but also for his vocals, so a P.A. system would have been the logical choice for the job. Guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson, who played in LW's band from 1955 to 1959, said LW never even brought an amp to his local gigs in Chicago - he always played through the house P.A. system in local clubs. But it's important to consider that Little Walter's choice of a P.A. system (as opposed to a guitar amp) for his harmonica probably wasn't based on any special 'mojo' factor afforded by the P.A. amp vs. a guitar amp. More likely, it was simply because that's what ALL singers used; it's what was available at the time, and if you were a singing harp player in the '50s, you played your harp into the same mic you sang into. In other words, one wouldn't have one mic/amp combination for the harp, and a separate mic plugged into a P.A. system for the vocals, as so many do today - according the guitarists Jimmie Lee Robinson and Dave Myers, Walter always used the same mic for both harp and vocals on club gigs. It was just a happy accident that the relatively low quality of vocal mic / P.A. set-ups available at the time was well suited for the amplified harp sound.

There are a number of photos taken in Chicago blues clubs during that era that show house P.A. systems consisting of the same type of portable systems referred to above, so it's entirely likely that he would have a similar set up of his own for road gigs. Guitarist Dave Myers, who played in LW's band from 1952 until 1955, said that he thought that LW had a "Macon" amplifier at one point; since there doesn't appear to be such a brand available at the time, he probably confused the name with "Masco", a brand of portable P.A. systems which were common then. At that time, the standard portable P.A. systems consisted of two separate speaker cabinets and a small stand-alone tube amp that could be attached together into a single, suitcase-like unit for portability. Among the companies that manufactured these systems were Stromberg-Carlson, Masco, Knight, Bell, Bogan and others, and each of these companies made various models, but many with the same basic two-speaker-cabinets-and-an-amp configuration. It's likely that Little Walter used at least one of these brands at some point.

Now, if you didn't know any better, you might look at this photo and say, "Ah HA! A picture of Little Walter and his rig!" Problem is, it is Little Walter, but it's not his rig. This photo was shot by French blues researcher Jacques Demetre on a visit to Chicago in 1959 (note the "Go-Go White Sox banners" - 1959 was the year the Chicago White Sox won the American League championship, and the last time they went to the World Series prior to their 2005 championship). Demetre went out one night to see Muddy Waters perform in a south side club; James Cotton was Muddy's harp player at the time. Little Walter later showed up at the club, and at Demetre's request, took Cotton's place and sat in with Muddy's band for part of the night. But look at what Little Walter is playing through - a silver/gray Astatic JT-30 microphone, and if you follow the cord, you'll see that it's plugged into a portable P.A. system on the shelf above he and guitarist Pat Hare. It's not known whether this is Cotton's own equipment, the club's regular P.A. system, or Muddy's own P.A. for the whole band. But it's definitely a Masco system - compare the P.A. amp to this old Masco amp:

The recent photo above shows a rare example of an old portable Masco P.A. system that is still intact. Most of the ones you find these days no longer have the speakers with them. The speaker cabinets have open backs; the amp slides into the back of the speaker cabinets in the space below the speakers, and the two cabinets are then fastened together back-to-back into a single suitcase-sized unit for portability. This is most likely the sort of P.A. system Little Walter used - although I don't know if his had the built in turntable to spin tunes in between sets! (By the way, I found this photo by doing a google search for "Masco", but unfortunately I forgot to note the website where I found this. So if it's yours, let me know and I'll put a link to it here.)

This is a photo of Dave and Louis Myers on a gig with Little Walter's band circa 1953. According to Dave, this photo was shot at a club in Michigan (I think he said it was in Detroit, although I may be wrong) on a 'double bill' that Little Walter shared with Muddy Waters and his band - note the "Muddy Waters" on the bass drum head. The drum set barely visible on the right belonged to Walter's drummer Fred Below, and had his name painted on his bass drum head. Both bands set up on the same stage and would alternate sets; this photo was obviously shot in between sets. I've had a copy of this photo for years, but while I was putting together the information for this page, I happened to notice something I'd overlooked previously: there appears to be a P.A. amp on the floor of the stage, as indicated by the arrow. Here's a close-up:

Unfortunately the photo isn't clear enough to definitively determine the precise identity of the amplifier, but it appears to show the side of a Masco P.A. amp - note the vertical cooling slots and compare to the other Masco amps in the photos above. Of course there's no way to say for sure if this is actually Little Walter's own amp, but since Muddy was the only other person on the bill who would have needed this type of amplification (for his vocals), it could only really have belonged to either he or Little Walter. So there's a 50/50 chance this is the only known photo of Little Walter's amp from the 1950s. Either way, it's one of the strongest available indicators of the type of amplification he was using at that time.

INTERVIEWER: Walter, did you use any particular amplifier that you liked for recording, had the right sound for you (WALTER: Yeah, um hmm...) a speaker or something?

LOUIS: Oh, we went through some, aw, amplifiers, boy. We went through all kinds of amplifiers.

WALTER: I, ain't nobody had no amplifier like that German guitar player, you remember? When we was up in Dayton, Ohio. I had a amplifier built, about that...wide, (LOUIS: And it had four speakers on each side...) about that tall, and it had four speakers on each side. Amplifier up, and one down. If I blew a fuse out of one, I just...plug my line in this. And I got a TERRIFIC sound out of it. I still got that amplifier.

LOUIS: You couldn't have, the last time I saw that amp, boy, it was a raggedy piece of bullshit.

LOUIS: You used to play it at McKie's, boy let me tell you. Looked like it, looked like it, it had been in three wars. (laughs)

WALTER: You remember that amplifier I throwed in the river down in Georgia ? We started playin', we started about nine o'clock , amplifier played just as good as a P.A. system. Brand new! Played that good 'til about 12:30 , 1:00 o'clock , the volume would drop...(LOUIS: Played 'til it's hot.)...down where you couldn't hear. (LOUIS: Got hot.) Yeah.

WALTER: Louis said "Get your amp...", I said, "Naw, naw." Ain't but one thing to do with this one. When we crossed that river, I stopped the car. (INTERVIEWER: [laughs]) Threw it in the river. You KNOW I had to go get me another one then, now. Bought another one in Atlanta , too, didn't I?

INTERVIEWER: Was, did Walter have that amplifier made, that one that had eight speakers?

LOUIS: I don't know, I think he got it somewhere. I ain't, I ain't never seen but one of them amplifiers...

LOUIS: I, he had one, and I saw some guy with one, I ain't never seen another one like that. I said he, that was tough amplifier, he kept that amplifier for years, man.

LOUIS: Yeah, it's about that high, it's about this wide. And when you put it together, it was just about that wide. It didn't look like...

LOUIS: It was two, it was speakers, you know...it had long wires, and you could hang one so far away. And the other one had the machine with it. You know, where you'd plugs here, your wires, and turn it just like this, that you...(INTERVIEWER: Um hmm.) But he'd set the other speakers way away, and these four speakers was sittin' right here in this other cabinet. It was a cabinet, like, two part cabinet.

INTERVIEWER: Didn't you say, sometimes he put 'em both together, back to back, it'd really sound good.

LOUIS: Any way he put it, boy, that thing sounded, it was, it was POWERFUL, boy. It had eight speakers in it. I think it was a National, I don't know, it coulda been a Nat-...I think it was a OFF brand. I never seen one, I ain't saw but two. I saw Walter with one, I saw another cat, but I don't know...who he was, or where it was I saw it. It was a damn good, those are some good amplifiers, boy. The best I ever, the best I ever heard a harp on.

INTERVIEWER: There's not much [tape] left on there. Uh, do you remember, uh...(WALTER, returning to the room: Hmm?) what the brand of that amplifier was, that one that...

LOUIS: I think they do, Walter...(WALTER: They probably do, changed style.)...they probably makin' 'em in a different form, yeah, a different form now.

LOUIS: Because, uh, I figured that was a National, 'cause you know why? I had a amplifier YEARS ago, I, in fact it was my first amplifier...

INTERVIEWER: (interrupting) Where did you pick that up originally, what year you think they made those?

WALTER: Yeah, yeah, 'cause I had that ol' big one. (LOUIS: Thing, talkin' 'bout them thing...) They put our name on our amplifier? *Things was junk.*

LOUIS: Them things was no good, boy. Them things was all...Robert Junior had one, Dave had one, (WALTER: Um hm.) I took mines back! (laughs)

LOUIS: And I took that amp...I couldn't stand that amplifier, boy, that amplifier's just worst...I don't know how y'all kept them amps long as y'all do, (WALTER: Stayed on the road so long, that's how.) It had the worst sound, it had the worst sound... (WALTER: When we come BACK we got rid of 'em.) I took mine back (laughing) and they theirs, and we hit the road!

LOUIS: That's the worst thing we ever had. This was a huge amp, this long, it had a, had a crossbar...

LOUIS: And it had all kinds of little lights on it. You light the thing up, it look pretty though, didn't it? (laughing)

LOUIS: (laughing) That thing was a nice lookin' thing, but that sound wasn't there.

This is the information usually used as the basis for research into "The Little Walter amplifier", but there are some confusing and conflicting details here. First and probably most important, when asked about his favorite amplifier, Walter immediately says it was custom made for him. Louis confirms this by adding that he never saw another one like it, later amending this to indicate that he'd seen only one other amp like it. This would seem to rule out any 'brand name', store-bought amp; as full-time touring musicians, Walter and Louis would likely have spent enough time in music stores and around other musicians to have seen most nationally distributed brands. But this important bit of information is seemingly ignored by the interviewer, who presses Walter to provide a brand name. Walter obliges by saying he thought it was an "International"; unfortunately there's no evidence of any company called "International" that manufactured amplifiers then. There was of course the company "National", but searches of National amp catalogs from from the early and min '50s do not show any amplifiers that match the description given above - National apparently didn't make any amps with two separate speaker cabinets. Further, there was no amp available from National - or any other brand I've discovered - that had an "amplifier up, one down", to switch between in the event of a blown fuse, as Walter described his amp.

The one amp that does seem to match Little Walter's description as far as the speaker configuration is concerned is the Danelectro Commando model 88 (also available from the Montgomery Wards department store chain under the house brand "Airline"). Danelectro was not affiliated with National in any way, but the Commando actually does have two separate speaker cabinets with four 8" speakers in each, which seems to match the description of the "itty bitty speakers" Walter refers to. The Danelectro Commando was available from around 1954 until 1960, but because it differs in a couple of important aspects from the amp Louis and Walter described (i.e., it was widely available and not custom made, and didn't have an 'amplifier up, one down'), I suspect that it may not actually be the amp they're referring to above - or else they're conflating the details of more than one of Walter's amps in their descriptions. It's certainly possible that Walter may have used a Danelectro Commando, which was widely available, at one time or another, and if so perhaps its speaker configuration inspired the design of the custom amp he refers to above. But I'm not entirely convinced that this was the amp he was referring to in the interview above.

It's also worth noting that when describing an amp that he likes, he says it was "just as good as a P.A. system", which would seem to confirm that his preferred amps were in fact P.A. systems. It's also noteworthy that when talking about the amps he didn't like, he describes one with the 'light up crossbar', which actually matches the physical description of several amps in the early and mid '50s National line - which of course would seem to contradict all of the positive (possibly mistaken) references to this brand made elsewhere by he and Louis. Finally, it's worth mentioning that there's no evidence nor testimony from either Little Walter or anyone else that he ever used the set-up many latter-day harp players consider the "holy grail" of the Little Walter harp sound: a Shure "Green Bullet" microphone and a Fender Bassman amplifier. In a general way, this set up would is good for achieving a certain type of harsh, over-driven amplified harp sound, but it wouldn't really be the right set-up for getting "the Little Walter sound."

Over the years there have been quite a few tales told by people who have claimed to have Little Walter's amplifier or microphone. The fact that Walter used many different amps and mics increases the odds that some of these stories may actually be true, but unfortunately most of the stories don't stand up to close scrutiny, because there's never a direct trail of provenance back to Little Walter. However one story that does hold up comes from blues harp player Carey Bell, who was an up-and-coming blues player in Chicago in the late '50s and 1960s, and hung around with Walter socially as well as sitting in on gigs with him. Over the years Carey has consistently said in interviews that he ended up with one of Little Walter's amps after Walter died, which he used on gigs for a couple of years before it was stolen from him. Carey is not a technically-minded guy, and never paid attention to the name or model number of the amp, but his description does match the layout of portable P.A. systems of the type discussed above. Carey's story might be written off as unprovable, except that there is photographic / video evidence of him using a harp amp set-up that does correspond with what we know about Little Walter's amplifier. Below is a shot captured from a video of Carey performing at the 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festival, playing his harp through what appears to be a Masco-type portable P.A. system (apparently using only one of the two outboard speaker cabinets), and although Carey hadn't seen the video, when he was asked about the amp recently, he did say that the amp he's gotten from Little Walter was the same one he used in Ann Arbor that year.

Obviously the shot is not clear enough to make out much detail, but this is clearly an old portable P.A. set-up of the type described above. So if Carey's story is true - and since he has nothing to gain by it, there's not much reason to doubt him - it's entirely possible that this actually was one of Little Walter's many amps.

There's no evidence that Little Walter ever used any outboard effects such as reverb units, Echoplexes, tremelo boxes, etc. on his gigs - in fact none of these effects were widely available until the 1960s, after Little Walter's heyday. The reverb / echo effects heard on his records were added by the recording engineer, outside of the control of Little Walter. When asked about it directly, Little Walter himself didn't know how the reverb and echo effects were added to his records; it's entirely possible that he never even heard whatever effects were added by the recording engineer until he heard them on his records. Guitarists Jimmy Rogers, Louis Myers, Dave Myers, Luther Tucker, and Jimmie Lee Robinson, all of whom played with Little Walter throughout the 1950s, were asked about his equipment, and none of them ever recalled him using any outboard special effects at any time. The only special effect heard on his records that was within his control was the built-in tremelo on his amplifier, which he first heard on his January 1953 "Don't Need No Horse" session, and at couple of later sessions. Not many amplifiers available in January 1953 had tremelo (for instance, Fender didn't start including it in amps until c. 1955), so the likely candidates for his amplifier on that session are from Gibson or National, which were among the few brands that did have built-in tremelo, and were manufactured locally and easily available in any Chicago area music store.