LISTEN:  Hear Winston Walls perform "Rock Candy," in this song from the album "Boss of the B3,"   which reunited Walls with longtime friend and fellow Hammond player Brother Jack McDuff.

By Michael Lipton
For the Gazette

Winston Walls, a longtime Charleston resident and one of the world's premier Hammond organists, passed away at his home in Fort Meyers, Florida, on Feb 4. He was 65 years old.

As Winston's health deteriorated over the past 10 years, his phone calls became almost pleading. The vital, talented and fiercely independent man was unable to do what he loved most in this world: play music and entertain people.

Rather than a remembrance after his death, I had hoped to write an acknowledgment of his lifelong work and virtuosity that would be read as he was honored as one of the 2008 West Virginia Music Hall of Fame inductees.

Winston felt like he never got the respect he deserved in his hometown and it would have meant the world to him to bask in that overdue recognition -- even for a night. Plus, he deserved it -- and then some.

Born on the road

He was born in a car in Ironton, Ohio, in 1943, as his family was en route from Lexington, Ky., to their Charleston home. Music was a family affair. His father, Harry "Van" Walls served as house pianist for Atlantic Records during the 1950s and was recognized by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation with a Pioneer Award in 1997.

After studying drums with the late, great Charleston drummer Frank Thompson, Winston got a lucky break when Hammond great Bill Doggett's drummer didn't show for a gig at Charleston's Municipal Auditorium. Soon, he was picking up what he could from Doggett and switched to the electric Hammond organ, filling in for his mentor at weekly jam sessions.

Winston went on to travel with Dionne Warwick, Al Green, Charlie Pride, Ike and Tina Turner, Lou Donaldson and Sonny Stitt.

He and longtime cohort and fellow organist, the late Brother Jack McDuff, "discovered" guitarist George Benson when he was a teenager playing in Pittsburgh. After a highly spirited disagreement as to whose band Benson would join, Winston accompanied McDuff to Benson's house where they talked his parents into letting him go on the road with McDuff.

Winston would play anywhere and everywhere and I'd venture that nearly every Charleston musician from the '70s to the '90s has a few Winston gigs under his/her belt. It was as a simple duo or trio, with players like Frank Thompson, Marshall Petty, Bob Redd, Dugan Carter and Rabbit Jones, that he absolutely killed.

He was perhaps the finest, most intuitive musician I've ever had the joy of hearing. In his hands, musical labels -- whether "Rock Candy" (a McDuff tune), the blindingly fast "Caravan," a gospel tune, country standard or the "Electric Slide" -- were meaningless.

He was "old school" all the way. He came up during a time when entertaining a crowd was nearly as important as developing your chops. With one wisecrack he could put an entire room at ease - or, if he chose, make them wriggle uncomfortably.

He had a razor sharp wit and could read an audience like a stand-up comic - which, along with being a motorcycle trick rider, professional roller skater, and a wrestler (under the name of "The Claw"), was one of his many itinerant jobs over the years.

And whether your first impression was of a world-class player, a charming gentleman or an incredibly cranky and gruff curmudgeon, you would never forget even a chance encounter.

Give me my mic

There are so many Winston Walls stories it's hard to know where to begin. There's the time he got into it with a club owner in Youngstown, Ohio, and, during a set, crouched underneath his Hammond (which weighs in at around 250 pounds) and carried it out of the club on his back. Or the time when a club owner in Lexington, Ky., stiffed him and he came back and "shot the place up" with a pair of shotguns.

Or the time when Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), who frequently showed up at his gigs, grabbed the mike to sing "Stand By Me." Years later, Winston still sounded annoyed. "I had a fight with my woman and I was really getting into playing," he recalled. "I had my eyes closed and all of a sudden the mike was gone. I looked up and this guy says, 'I'm Cassius Clay.' I said, 'I don't give a s__t,' and chased him around the room with the mike stand."

As is the case with many artists, Winston was often his own worst enemy. He turned down or sabotaged more opportunities (including contracts with the Columbia and RCA labels) than most musicians are offered. Whether it was insecurity, a "fear of success" or simple cantankerousness, he exhausted the good will of a long list of supporters and benefactors. But that was Winston.

Beneath an exterior that was rough enough to intimidate even the most self-assured musician, he was a soft-hearted sweetheart (he never went to sleep without his favorite Teddy bear). Sitting in with him often turned into a serious music lesson. He knew how to make even an average player sound like a pro.

But if he sensed you were cocky and needed to be brought down a few notches, he would run through key and tempo changes that made even a great player sound like a bumbling amateur. One night at the Empty Glass, I witnessed Taj Mahal shrink to the back of the stage when Winston, who was singing and playing guitar, looked at him with that famous scowl and called on him for a solo.

Coaxing the beast

Onstage, he was ferocious. The Hammond organ is an instrument all its own and he knew it as well as anyone. Pushing and pulling drawbars, and running lightning fast bass lines with his feet, he could coax a symphony - or cacophony - from the beast.

In his heyday, he was one of four top-shelf organists - the others being the incomparable Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff and Richard "Groove" Holmes - who toured the country performing nightly "Battle of the Organs."

For his first and only solo recording, 1993's "Boss of the B3," producer Steve Bergman and I reunited Winston and McDuff to recreate a classic "Battle of the Organ" session. Here's an excerpt from a piece I wrote after witnessing those shows:

“What began as a standard blues was taking a radical detour. Every limb was working: Walls' feet were a blur, dancing and tapping out a speedy bass line; his left hand was busy playing chords while the fingers on his right hand worked through an intricate solo.

"Slowly, Winston stood up and threw his head back. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. Musically, the intervals grew closer, slowly transforming melody into demonic dissonance. The crowd was right there with him. Moving in for the kill, he held down a note while turning the organ on and off. The beast responded with whines and growls. The music was swinging so hard it felt like the entire room might explode."

Winston's musical battle cry was: "Somebody say yeah... somebody say hell, yeah!!" He would hit the crowd with that a number of times each gig and it never failed to get a rousing response.

If you've ever had the pleasure of hearing Winston play, having him impart some musical knowledge or simply having a 3 a.m. cup of coffee at Southern Kitchen, take a moment and give him a big "hell, yeah." He'll appreciate it.

Charleston musician Michael Lipton is a founder of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.