ABSTRACT
Walter Vinson was born in 1901 in Bolton, Mississippi. He started entertaining at local venues in Bolton when still a child. During the 1920s he worked with Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Charlie McCoy, Rubin Lacy, and Son Spand in the Crystal Springs and Jackson areas of Mississippi. In the late 1920s, he teamed with the Chatman family, and first recorded with Chatman's Mississippi Hot Footers in 1929 for the Brunswick label. In the 1930s, he was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks, along with Lonnie, Bo, and Sam Chat-man, and recorded extensively with them from 1930 to 1935, but he also recorded with a number of other artists including Charlie McCoy, Little Brother Montgomery, Robert Lee McCoy, Alfred Elkins, and Sarah Jacobs. In the 1940s he performed in clubs, and again in the 1960s he recorded and played at festivals. He died in 1975.
