Born on Moreauville, Louisiana on July 6, 1932, Don Wilkerson was a jazz and soul tenor saxophonist best known for his solo releases on Blue Note Records which featured guitarist Grant Green. Growing up in Moreauville, he learned to play saxophone while in his teens, eventually moving to Houston, Texas and performing with Amos Milburn and Charles Brown. In the mid-t0-late 1950s, he became a popular sideman and recorded studio sessions with Milburn. Don Wilkerson also performed on classic ‘50s and early 1960s recordings by Ray Charles including “I Got a Woman,” “Hallelujah I Love Her So,” as well as on the classic Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music album in 1962. He also worked with fellow jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, who produced Don Wilkerson’s debut album The Texas Twister (1960), which was released on the Riverside label. He signed with Blue Note Records and released the albums Preach Brother (1962), Elder Don (1963), and Shoutin’ (1965), all three of which featured guitarist Grant Green. Don Wilkerson’s Blue Note albums were not commercially successful, and he never recorded as a leader again. Largely overlooked by the jazz community later in his life, Don Wilkerson died on July 18, 1986.
