Percy Mayfield with the Phillip Walker Blues Band

Mayfield was born in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. As a youth, his talent for poetry led him into songwriting and singing. He began his performing career in Texas, and then moved to Los Angeles, California in 1942; success as a singer continued to elude him. In 1947, a small record label, Swing Time, signed him to record his song "Two Years of Torture." The song sold steadily over the next few years, prompting Art Rupe to sign Mayfield to his label, Specialty Records in 1950.

Although his vocal style was influenced by such stylists as Charles Brown, Mayfield did not focus on the white market, unlike many West Coast bluesmen. Rather, he sang blues ballads, mostly his own songs, in a gentle vocal style. His most famous recording, "Please Send Me Someone to Love", a number one R&B hit single in 1950, was widely influential and recorded by many other singers.

A 1952 automobile accident left Mayfield seriously injured, including a facial disfigurement that limited his performing. However, that did not stop his prolific songwriting. Mayfield continued to write and record for Specialty until 1954, and then recorded for Chess Records and Imperial Records. His career continued to flourish with songs like "Strange Things Happening", "Lost Love", "What a Fool I Was", "Prayin' for Your Return"' "Cry Baby", and "Big Question".

In 1961, he came to the attention of Ray Charles with his song "Hit the Road Jack". Charles signed him to his Tangerine Records label, primarily as a songwriter; there he wrote "Hide Nor Hair", "At The Club", "Danger Zone", and "On the Other Hand, Baby".

The period following the RCA recordings in the early 70's saw Percy Mayfield once again slip into obscurity and poverty; there was, however, one final chapter to his career. In the early 80's Bay Area blues musician Mark Naftalin discovered that Percy was living in the East Bay somewhere and was able to provide Percy with a band for live performances around several Marin County and East Bay clubs. The exposure also led to 1982 Timeless studio date with the excellent Phillip Walker Blues Band.

When Mayfield died of a heart attack in 1984, the day before his 64th birthday, he had fallen back into obscurity.

Personal Life

Percy Mayfield married three times. The identity of his first wife is unknown; his second wife was Willie Mae Atlas Mayfield; his third wife was Tina Mayfield. With his second wife, he had one child, daughter Pamela, and three grandchildren.

Philip Walker

It is a matter of public record that Phillip Walker was born in Welsh, Louisiana, February 11, 1937. Phillip was the seventh of twelve children of Malvin and Viola Weber Walker, sharecroppers who were married at ages 14 and 13 and began raising a family when they were only children themselves. Malvin was a smart hardworking farmer who always managed, somehow, to keep a roof over the heads of his family. Malvin could fix anything, and Phillip seems to have followed in his dad's footsteps with a mechanical aptitude nothing short of amazing.

When Phillip was 8 years old his family moved to Port Arthur, Texas. It is this combination of Louisiana Creole, French, and Indian (his mother’s mother was full-blooded Cherokee), and Texas western gunslinger that combines to prod Phillip’s unique speech patterns, accent and dialect. His mother spoke in the French Creole dialect (Cajun) of the area.

Things went smoothly in Port Arthur for a while, but by the time he was 12 years old, his father’s health had begun to fail and the biggest and strongest boys were expected to get the crops in. From that time, as happened in so many poor families, attendance at school became sporadic, and Phillip’s formal education was essentially finished.

Phillip’s uncles, (his mother’s five brothers, including Uncle Phillip Weber), all played in bands in the 20’s and 30’s and often came around and played guitar; musicianship runs in the family. Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown is a second cousin. [For the record, Aaron “T-Bone” Walker, who also had a full-blooded Cherokee grandmother does not appear to be related to Phillip, though it has been documented otherwise in quite a few places and there is some question.]

Phillip became interested in music at a young age. Not being able to afford a guitar of his own (his work in the fields earned no cash), Phillip constructed his first instrument from a cigar box, using the thinnest wire he could find (carefully and secretly removed from the family’s window screens) for strings.

He had a natural ear and a God-given musical talent, and became very good quite early. He spent every spare minute, when he wasn’t working in the fields or helping herd or brand cattle, learning his instrument. He would play softly into the middle of the night, and to this day rarely sleeps more than 5 hours at a stretch.

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