Pee Wee Crayton
Written by Terry Currier Tuesday, 30 June 2009 20:53
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By: Terry Currier
Article Reprint from the April, 1997 BluesNotes
Texas has produced some of the best when it comes to Blues guitar players, from the early days of Blind Lemon Jefferson to the recent years of Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan. The list in between is staggering. Many, such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Freddie King, Albert King, Johnny Copeland and T-Bone Walker, are gone. However, some legendary players, including Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Sonny Rhodes and Johnny Winter are still active today.
Pee Wee Crayton has not received the same recognition as some of the others, but his playing puts him right up there at the top of the list. He was born to Connie and Curtis Crayton on December 18, 1914 in Rockdale, Texas. He spent most of his childhood in Austin. Early on he showed an interest in music and he made his first instrument out of a guitar box. While attending Olive C. School, he played both the ukulele and trumpet in the school band. When he finished school, playing music for a living was not on his mind. Around 1935, he moved to Los Angeles where he worked several different jobs. In 1945, he decided to take up playing guitar seriously and he soon left his job in the shipyard. He formed a trio and they worked in and around Los Angeles and San Francisco. The following year, he started playing with the Ivory Joe Hunter Band in the Los Angeles area. He also played with them on a recording for the Pacific label. Pee Wee and his trio continued getting work playing in lower California. In 1947, he made his own recording for the 4 Star label in Los Angeles. By 1949, he had built up quite a reputation for himself. He took his band on a tour across the states including a date in Michigan with Big Joe Turner and Lowell Fulson. He also recorded for the Los Angeles-based Modern Records that year.
There are several stories on how he acquired the name Pee Wee. In a "Living Blues" article in the 1980s, he stated that friend and singer, Roy Brown, gave him the nickname. This makes sense since Roy had a way of making nicknames for many of his friends. It has also been said that his father gave him the nickname as a tribute to a local Texas piano player.
Pee Wee's talents were in demand and he began playing on recording sessions with many other bands. In 1951, he recorded with The Maxwell Davis Orchestra for Aladdin Records in Los Angeles and in 1954 with The Red Callender Sextet. He also toured with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown that year on the East Coast and recorded for the Imperial label in New Orleans.
Detroit became his home in 1955. He toured all over the East and into the South. There was a show in Detroit billed as the "Battle of the Guitars" with T-Bone Walker and Pee Wee. The way Pee Wee talked with the media you would have thought he was the Mohammed Ali of guitar and that T-Bone wasn't even close to being in the same league as Pee Wee. T-Bone and Pee Wee duked it out on guitar that night in a show which show-cased two of the finest Blues guitarists at that time.
In the late 1950s, he toured with Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, and Dinah Washington. His guitar playing was as suitable for R&B as it was the Blues. He recorded for VJ Records in Chicago in 1956 and 1957 and for the Fox label in Detroit in 1959.
The 1960s came and Pee Wee was treated the same way the Great Depression of the 1930s treated the Blues stars of the Golden Blues Decade of the'20s. Blues had not lost its popularity, but the early years of the 1960s found the revival of the old Country Blues players from the 1920s. People like B.B. King and T-Bone Walker were doing okay, but lesser known players found it harder to make a living playing music.
Pee Wee recorded for a small label called Jamie in 1961, and played on a recording with The R.A. Blackwell Orchestra in 1962. Almost starving, he moved back to Los Angeles and found work as a truck driver. He occasionally played on the weekends, and in 1968, he again recorded for Modern Records.
The 1970s treated him much better. He started the decade playing with The Johnny Otis Show at the Monterey Jazz Festival. This was recorded and released on Epic Records. He played the next year with Otis and this helped re-introduce him to many who knew him before, as well as to a whole new audience. In 1971, he recorded a great album for Vanguard Records and he began getting work on his own. His tough life in the 1960s and probably the fact that he was a bit older had toned down and humbled Pee Wee. He no longer had that flamboyant Mohammed Ali attitude. He was just happy to be able to play his guitar - something his rival T-Bone no longer could do. T-Bone passed away in 1975.
Pee Wee recorded an album for Blue Spectrum Records in Los Angeles in 1974 and played on a Big Joe Turner record for Pablo in 1975. He continued playing regularly throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s. In his spare time, he played golf. Although he never achieved the popularity of many of his peers, he was respected by all of them. Pee Wee was a musician's musician. Some say he was best experienced live, but hearing him sing and play on the Modern recordings of the 1950s is a real treat. Pee Wee Crayton died in 1985.