Back To The Basics

One Of the biggest influences on my harmonica playing was the legendary " Little Walter". Born Walter Marion Jacobs, May 1, 1930, in Marksville, LA; died from a blood clot sustained in a street fight, February 15, 1968; son of Adams Jacobs and Beatrice Leveige. Little Walter made his first released recordings in 1947 for Bernard Abram's tiny Ora-Nelle label, which operated out of the back room of the Abrams' Maxwell Radio and Records store in the heart of the Maxwell Street market area in Chicago. Little Walter scored fourteen top-ten hits on the Billboard R&B charts between 1952 and 1958, including two #1 hits (the second being "My Babe" in 1955), a feat never achieved by his former boss Muddy Waters, nor by his fellow Chess blues artists Howlin Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II. My favorite Little Walter tune was "Juke", an up tempo harmonica instrumental.

Blue Steele is a strong, solid blues band, firmly in the tradition, with tasteful players all the way around and good vocals. A fine band.

- Bruce Iglauer (President, Alligator Records & Artist Management, Inc.)

I always wanted to play a Little Walter tune as tribute to him. Blue Steele went back to the basic slow blues of Little Walter and learned my second favorite Little Walter tune "My Babe". With Jim Alvey doing the vocals and me playing the harmonica, the song quickly became a total crowd pleaser. When in the recording studio making our first album "Hot Wired", I told Ray Tilkens the producer/engineer that I wanted my sound to be as close to the original sound of Little Walter as possible. Little Walter might be gone but his music truly lives inside of me. Please sit back and enjoy Blue Steele covering the Little Walter tune "MY BABE".
Ernie Steele

The Blues Band

Blue Steele was known all around the DC and Baltimore areas as a premiere Blues Band that folks loved to come see. I kept the PA at my house and was basically the sound man for the band. However big gigs that we did had the sound provided or we contracted a professional sound man to do.

Those rockin' chair blues ain't gonna get Blue Steele. Fronted (if not totally obstructed from view) by big harp player, Ernie "Hurricane" Steele, the band mixes danceable blues with rock and boogie.

- Pamela Purdy. The Baltimore Sun

All the reviews that Blue Steele received were nothing short of excellent.

I remember a gig we did at Fort Dupont in Washington DC. It was an outdoors gig on a big stage done by professional sound men. We opened up for Clarence Carter the great musician that was known for famous songs such as "Patches" and "Stroking". Clarence Carter and myself had adjoining dressing rooms. At the end of the night I opened the door and went in his dressing room and shook his hand, I told him who I was and how I thought he was so great. Clarence Carter being blind told me how great of a harmonica player I was and how much he liked my performance. That was all we said to each other because he was in the middle of changing his clothes and his manager chased me off. During our performance there were people as far as I could see all the way up a side of a hill. We played one set and we were called back to do an encore. I sat in the front row and watched Clarence Carter's performance and I was swamped by people wanting my autograph. Here is a song we did that summer at Fort Dupont. Please enjoy. Gettin' Tired of Waiting