14. T-BONE WALKER

Seven Texans made Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest guitarists list. Among the seven, the one who could be classified as a true pioneer rather than second- or third-gen great is Aaron Thibeaux Walker. The Linden native was more stylist than composer, but he helped create the language of modern guitar playing with his big buttery bursts of notes. He gets filed under blues — that happens when you carry a stage name like T-Bone — but his music was a more stylistically slippery thing with elegant brassy R&B leanings. Chuck Berry cited him as an influence

and Walker’s “Stormy Monday” also left a formidable impression on blues legends like B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Most Texas musical moment: Before perfecting his nightclub blues, Walker went by Oak Cliff T-Bone in the late-’20s, recording “Trinity River Blues” and “Wichita Falls Blues.”