A quiet, unassuming, shy man, he is remembered as one of the premier harmonica players in the history of blues.

[3] Robert Palmer named him as 'one of the three great harmonica soloists of modern blues with the two others being cited as Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Johnny Shines, a childhood friend of Horton's, said, 'I met Walter, really, in 1930, and he would be sitting on the porch, blowing in tin cans, you know, and he'd get sounds out of those things'.

[3][13] These recordings were acoustic duets, in a style popularized by Sleepy John Estes and his harmonicist Hammie Nixon, among others.

It can be heard—upon listening to players such as Hammie Nixon—that Horton was heavily influenced by such earlier styles of harmonica playing.

Horton eventually stopped playing the harmonica for a living, because of poor health[12] (possibly tuberculosis), and worked mainly outside the music industry in the 1940s.

A couple of weeks after arriving, however, he was invited to join Muddy Waters' blues band when Junior Wells was drafted into the army at the end of 1952.

[19][20] After being fired from the Muddy Waters band, Walter moved back to Memphis and recorded again with Sam Phillips at Sun Studio.

Horton's instrumental track "Easy", recorded around this time, was based on Ivory Joe Hunter's "I Almost Lost My Mind".

[21][22] During the early 1950s he appeared on the Chicago blues scene, frequently playing with Memphis and Delta musicians who had also moved north, including the guitarists Eddie Taylor and Johnny Shines.

From the early 1960s onward, he recorded and frequently performed as a sideman with Taylor, Shines, Johnny Young, Sunnyland Slim, Willie Dixon and many others.

In October 1968, whilst touring the U.K., he recorded the album Southern Comfort with the guitarist Martin Stone (previously with Savoy Brown and later a member of Mighty Baby).

He toured usually as a backing musician and, in the 1970s, he performed at blues and folk music festivals in the United States and Europe, frequently with Dixon's Chicago All-Stars.

In the late 1970s, if in town, Horton played the Sunday matinees at B.L.U.E.S, with Homesick James and Floyd Jones,(who had switched from guitar to bass), and he toured the United States with James, Guido Sinclair, Eddie Taylor, Richard Molina, Bradley Pierce Smith and Paul Nebenzahl, and he performed on National Public Radio broadcasts.

Also notable is the album Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell, released by Alligator Records in 1972.

It was a broken down rise made of wood and it appeared that he had a lot of family living there.”[12] Timeline of residency (references and the like in biography).

Joined Muddy Water's band during 1953 before being fired, periodically thereafter moving to Memphis to record again with Sam Phillips.