One of Motown's hitmakers who did not get the same kind of spotlight his contemporaries did: Junior Walker was bom Autry DeWalt, Jr., in Blytheville, Arkansas, on June 14, 1931, though Motown always stated that he was born in 1942. As a teenager living in South Bend, Indiana, Walker received his first saxophone from an uncle. Inspired by the jump blues, jazz, and rhythm and blues bands of the 1950s and the playing style of Earl Bostie, who straddled the line between jazz and R&B, Walker took to the instrument right away, apprenticing with his high school band and various Midwest groups. While in his mid-teens, Walker formed his first instrumental band, the Jumping Jacks, adopting the moniker "Junior Walker" after a childhood nickname. Before long, Walker achieved a prominent reputation by playing gigs at local jazz and R&B clubs. Hoping to broaden his name throughout the Midwest, he subsequently moved to St. Louis, Missouri, then in the late-1950s to Battle Creek,...