b. 19 March 1919, Pickens, Arkansas, USA, d. 10 January 1990, Toledo, Ohio, USA. Although his first years were spent in Louisiana, Mitchell was brought up in Detroit after his mother died around 1926, by which time he had already taken up the harmonica. Hoboing back in the south, he spent many years travelling through Louisiana, Arkansas and east Texas. Due to his diminutive stature, he earned the nickname Little Walter some time before Walter Jacobs appropriated it.