A left-handed slide guitarist, his intense style of playing and rapid-fire vocal delivery set him apart from his contemporaries.
[5] Arnold began playing in the early 1920s as a sideline, when he was working as a farmhand in Buffalo, New York, and as a steelworker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Arnold, Peetie Wheatstraw and Bumble Bee Slim were well-known musicians in Chicago blues circles at that time.
[9] It was later recorded by other blues musicians of the era, including Josh White (as "Pinewood Tom"), George Noble and Connie McLean's Rhythm Boys.
Arnold died of a heart attack in Chicago on November 8, 1968, aged either 67 or 72, and was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery, in Alsip, Illinois.