Before T-Bone Walker, the blues guitar was acoustic, seated, polite. T-Bone plugged in, stood up, and played the thing behind his head while doing splits in a tailored suit. Chuck Berry before Chuck Berry. Hendrix before Hendrix. The showmanship was spectacular, but the music was better.

Stormy Monday -- slow-burning bends and jazzy chord changes -- is the template for every blues guitarist who ever wanted a single note to say more than a paragraph. B.B. King heard T-Bone and knew what he wanted to do with his life. That's not influence. That's lineage.

He recorded for Imperial, for Atlantic, for Black & Blue. His single-string runs and his behind-the-head theatrics made him a sensation in clubs across the country. The electric blues guitar doesn't exist without T-Bone Walker. Every guitarist who ever plugged into an amp and bent a note slow and sweet traces back to him.

T-Bone Walker took the guitar from the front porch to the stage. He made it electric. He made it dangerous. And he did it with a smile and a tailored suit and a guitar behind his head. Every solo you've ever heard that bends a note until it hurts? That's T-Bone. The template doesn't change.