Tribute to a Blues Legend : The Country Club’s “5th Annual Hall of Fame Festival” will honor the renowned music of Chicago’s Little Walter as well as other harmonica players of his day.

Stories about the late blues harmonica master Little Walter usually start like this: He was a swell guy, a tough guy always ready for another fight, a heavy smoker and drinker, and he was a musical genius.

He came from Louisiana to the Chicago blues scene of the ‘50s and ‘60s and helped transform what was once seen as a backwoods instrument into a musical tool of uncommon power and raw finesse. His amplified harmonica, along with the guitars and vocals of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and others, created a new electric blues sound and set the stage for the blues-rock explosion of the late 1960s, of the Yardbirds, of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, of Cream.

Little Walter played the harmonica as if it were a saxophone, a trumpet, or any other complex horn you could name. And then in 1968, when he was just 37, he died in a street fight.

“He was quite a guy, you know,” says Golden (Big) Wheeler, a harmonica veteran who knew Little Walter back in Chicago. “If he liked you, he liked you. But if he didn’t like you, you had a problem.”

Little Walter’s music will be celebrated Nov. 19 when Chicago blues men Wheeler, Junior Wells, Carey Bell and Lester (Mad Dog) Davenport join a crowd of other players in a tribute performance at the Country Club in Reseda. The show is just the latest in a string of dates that is slowly returning the Country Club to its past glories as an essential Los Angeles music venue.

Last month, hard rock act the Rollins Band performed there in a show promoted by Goldenvoice Productions, which also has rock shows planned by NOFX tonight and the band All on Dec. 4. But a series of blues shows organized by local harmonica-player and promoter Randy Chortkoff is threatening to turn the 910-seat Country Club into a regular venue for the blues.

A concert performance by singer-organist Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers in October launched Chortkoff’s current series of shows with a nearly sold-out house. The Little Walter tribute Nov. 19 will be followed Nov. 20 with a performance by the Jeff Healey Band, the Canadian blues rock trio. Another show, headlined by Etta James and Taj Mahal, lands at the Country Club Dec. 18.

Chortkoff said producing the concerts is “a labor of love.” And the viability of bringing blues to the Country Club was already demonstrated last year with successful shows by Otis Rush and the late Albert King, both promoted by Chortkoff.

“Either people are willing to drive out to it, or maybe the Valley’s got this closet blues fanatic element hanging out,” said Juke Logan, a local harmonica veteran, who will also perform at the Little Walter tribute. “It’s nice to have a blues venue with some elbow room, that we can do some big shows in.”

It’s a new rush of activity for a venue that had fallen on hard times in the late ‘80s, even losing its liquor license for a few years and filling its calendar gaps with a variety of special events, from video shoots to professional wrestling. In its heyday, the Country Club had played host to acts ranging from Chuck Berry to X to King Sunny Ade.

The Nov. 19 program is more than a tribute to Little Walter, Chortkoff said. The show is also billed as the “5th Annual Hall of Fame Festival” and recognizes the work of other harmonica players who knew, played with or were heavily influenced by the late master. All the headline performers, who include Frank Frost of Mississippi and Los Angeles harmonica-player Rod Piazza, will receive special awards for lifetime achievement.

“I try to bring these guys out that have never really got the recognition they deserved, but have devoted their entire lives to playing music, and haven’t swayed from this type of music,” Chortkoff said of the older players.

“It won’t be long before we’ll look back and these guys will just be past legends. I guess the new generations of blues musicians will carry on, but it will never be the same.”

Chortkoff chooses the talent and award winners for the annual event, which has been held at a variety of local blues venues. Last year was the first time it was held at the Country Club. “I put this show together basically to pay tribute to these guys who migrated from the South to Chicago and took the deep Southern Delta blues to an urban setting and created a new big city sound,” Chortkoff said. “That later evolved into jazz and rock ‘n’ roll as we know it today. This blues music is basically the roots of all American music.”

Other players appearing at the Little Walter tribute include King Ernest and the Taildraggers, Hook Herrera and Latelle Barton, a cousin of Little Walter.

Although Wheeler has toured the East Coast and performed several dates in Europe, this will be his first trip to the West Coast.

In his early years he spent many days and nights with Little Walter, often climbing the stages of Chicago clubs to play harmonica. But it’s only been since 1987 that Wheeler has worked full time as a blues player. During most of his years in Chicago, Wheeler supported his six children by working as a mechanic.

“You can’t feed a family when you’re working at night,” said Wheeler, now 65. “You just can’t do that.”

These days, he added, “I’m strictly blues and that’s all. I don’t try to do James Brown and all that bull. I just do the blues the best that I can do.”

He said that for all his time running with Little Walter, his friend never actually offered much advice on harmonica technique. Mostly, he told Wheeler how to survive in urban Chicago, how to dress, how not to accept drinks from strangers.

“He was always in a hurry, like someone was at him, always looking around,” Wheeler said. “But every time you pick up a harmonica, man, you’re going to hit something that Little Walter did somewhere. There’s no getting around it.”

Lester (Mad Dog) Davenport, now 61, lived in Little Walter’s West Side Chicago neighborhood. “The main thing he told me was to get your own ideas,” Davenport recalled. “Try to create your own style, stick with it, and try to do it well enough that people will notice.”

Added Chortkoff: “They all stand in awe of Little Walter. No harmonica player, however old he is or however much success he’s attained, will ever say he was better than Little Walter. He was the guy.”

That would include Logan, who adopted the title of Little Walter’s hit “Juke” as his own first name. “I saw Muddy Waters, who was a monster to begin with, just get more monstrous with age,” Logan said. “He just got better and better with every performance, and performed right up until he died.”

Where and When What: “5th Annual Blues Hall of Fame Festival,” a tribute to Little Walter, with Junior Wells, Carey Bell, Big Wheeler, Lester (Mad Dog) Davenport, Frank Frost, Rod Piazza, Latelle Barton, King Ernest and the Taildraggers, Juke Logan, among others. Location: The Country Club, 18415 Sherman Way, Reseda. Hours: 7 p.m. Nov. 19. Price: $20-$30. Call: (818) 881-5601.