Willie Kizart (January 4, 1932 – September 2, 1998) was an American

electric blues Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplifier, amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the ...

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

best known for being a member of

Ike Turner Izear Luster "Ike" Turner Jr. (November 5, 1931 – December 12, 2007) was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, record producer, and talent scout. An early pioneer of 1950s rock and roll, he is best known for his work in the 1960s and 1 ...

Kings of Rhythm The Kings of Rhythm are an American music group formed in the late 1940s in Clarksdale, Mississippi and led by Ike Turner through to his death in 2007. Turner would retain the name of the band throughout his career, although the group has underg ...

in the 1950s. Kizart played guitar on "

Rocket 88 "Rocket 88" (originally stylized as Rocket "88") is a song that was first recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in March 1951. The recording was credited to "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats", who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. The ...

" in 1951, which is considered by some accounts to be the

first rock and roll record The origins of rock and roll are complex. Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlie ...

. The record is noted for featuring one of the first examples of

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

ever recorded; played by Kizart.

Life and career

Willie Lee Kizart was born in

Tutwiler, Mississippi Tutwiler is a town in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States. The population at the 2010 census was 3,550. History In 1899, Tom Tutwiler, a civil engineer for a local railroad, made his headquarters seven miles northwest of Sumner. The ...

on January 4, 1932. His father, Lee Kizart, was a local

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and

boogie Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm,Burrows, Terry (1995). ''Play Country Guitar'', p.42. Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. . "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie mus ...

pianist. He also repaired pianos and gave music lessons. Since childhood, Kizart was exposed to various

Delta Blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues. Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the s ...

musicians who performed at his father's cafe in Glendora, which became well known for its blues music. Kizart learned how to play guitar from slide guitarist

Earl Hooker Earl Zebedee Hooker (January 15, 1930 – April 21, 1970) was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and ...

. In his teens he joined

's band, the

. In March 1951, the Kings of Rhythm traveled to Memphis for a recording session at

Sam Phillips Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003) was an American record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, ...

Memphis Recording Service Sun Studio is a recording studio opened by rock-and-roll pioneer Sam Phillips at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label ...

. During the drive to the studio, Kizart's

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It may increase the power significantly, or its main effect may be to boost the v ...

was damaged on Highway 61 after being dropped from the car's trunk when the band got a flat tire. The amplifier was stuffed with wadded newspapers to keep the speaker cone in place, which unintentionally created a distorted sound during the recording of "

." The single was released in April 1951 and reached number-one on the ''Billboard'' R&B charts in June 1951. The record was credited to saxophonist and vocalist

Jackie Brenston Jackie Brenston (August 24, 1928 or 1930Most published sources and the U.S. Social Security Death Index give 1930 as his year of birth. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and reportedly his gravestone give 1928. – December 15, 1979) ...

, causing friction in the band. Turner and the band were only paid $20 each for the record with the exception of Brenston who sold the rights to Phillips for $910. Following the success of the record, Brenston left the band to pursue a solo career and Turner disbanded the Kings of Rhythm for a few years. In October 1952, Kizart joined Kings of Rhythm saxophonist Raymond Hill for a session at

Sun Studio Sun Studio is a recording studio opened by rock-and-roll pioneer Sam Phillips at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label ...

. The recordings were later released on various compilation albums, including ''Sun: The Roots Of Rock: Volume 3: Delta Rhythm Kings'' (1976) and ''Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1956'' (1984). In late 1954, Kizart moved to

East St. Louis East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

with Turner and the newly reformed Kings of Rhythm. The other band members included Willie "Bad Boy" Sims on drums, vocalist Johnny O'Neal, Turner's nephew Jessie Knight Jr. on bass, and Turner's wife Annie Mae Wilson on piano and vocals. Turner moved over from playing piano to guitar in order to accommodate Wilson, taking lessons from Kizart to improve. Kizart later worked as a session musician, backing local

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

musicians such as "Little Aaron" Mosby. Kizart died at the age of 66 in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

on September 2, 1998.

Discography

Albums as a sideman

* 1976: ''Sun: The Roots Of Rock: Volume 3: Delta Rhythm Kings'' (

Charly Records Charly Records is a British record label that specialises in reissued material. Among the labels whose original releases are reissued by Charly are Vee-Jay, Sun, Immediate, BYG, Tomato, and Fania. History Charly Records was founded in Franc ...

) * 1984: ''Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1956'' (

Sun Records Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee in February 1952. Sun was the first label to record Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny C ...

) * 2008: Ike Turner ⁠— ''Classic Early Sides 1952–1957'' (

JSP Records JSP Records is a British record label, founded in 1978 by John Stedman (John Stedman Promotions), releasing recordings by blues musicians such as Professor Longhair, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Witherspoon, Louisiana Red, Deitra Farr, Charlie Sayles, ...

) * 2010: Ike Turner ⁠— ''That Kat Sure Could Play! The Singles 1951 To 1957'' ( Secret Records Limited)

References

External links

Willie Kizart credits
on

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kizart, Willie 1932 births 1998 deaths African-American guitarists American rhythm and blues guitarists 20th-century American musicians 20th-century American guitarists People from Tutwiler, Mississippi Kings of Rhythm members 20th-century African-American musicians