There is one commercially issued recording on which Walter Horton (AKA "Big Walter", "Shakey Walter", or "Mumbles") played a chromatic harmonica. This was a piece in the key of C, played on a 16-hole C chromatic called simply "Blues". This was recorded at a private party in Germany in 1965 and it was issued on an LP called "Solo Harp" on the Document label (DLP 575), but is long out of print. According to Charlie Musselwhite, Horton was a very capable player on chromatic, but for some reason always preferred to play diatonic on recording sessions.
Some LP reissues of the Muddy Waters Band featuring chromatic playing have personnel listings which incorrectly list Horton as the harmonica player, when it was actually Little Walter Jacobs.
Although there was only this one officially released version of his chromatic playing, Horton did record a few tracks with a solo tuned diatonic. These are 12-hole diatonics that use the same tuning pattern as the typical chromatic harmonica, but give the typical diatonic tone and note bending capabilities. There have been a variety of them made over the years, but there are only a few currently in production. These include the Hohner Marine Band 364S (not to be confused with the regular 364, which simply uses an extension of the typical diatonic tuning), the Huang Cadet Soloist and the Hering Master Solo (formerly known as the Master Country). The Huang and Hering use the same hole spacing as a standard 10-hole diatonic, whereas the 364S is a somewhat larger harp. I have seen a couple of cheap Chinese made clones of the Huang and I recently obtained a 16-hole solo tuned diatonic (covering the same range as a 64 chromatic) made in China under the name "Blue Danube". Seydel also have a recent addition to the solo tuned market with their Solist Pro 12, which is available in low C solo tuning.
It should also be noted that Hohner used to make a few different solo-tuned diatonics that you might be lucky enough to find in an antique store or on eBay. First there were the School Band models - both of them were 12-holers, but the tenor version (1816T) was slightly larger than the soprano version (1816S). Each one was available in both C and G, the tenor C being tuned an octave lower than the soprano C. I believe these were made from the late 1930s to the 1950s.
They also made something called the Marine Band Soloist 584. This was a 12-hole harp only slightly larger than a regular Marine Band (just over 4"), with the same spacing of holes as a regular MB, unlike the larger spacing of the 365. This was discontinued in the mid 1970s.
The Educator I was like a slightly longer version of the Golden Melody. It was a solo-tuned harp in C (with valves on the lower reeds), but the scale started on a G, as did the Chromatic version, the Educator II. Both of these were discontinued in the late 1970s.
Walter played solo tuned harps on the tunes "Skip It", from his "Can't Keep Lovin' You" album (Blind Pig 1484) and on "Have Mercy", on his album with Carey Bell (Alligator 4702) (on this one, Walter plays soloist and Bell plays chromatic), "Hotel Alvin Blues Jam" from the album "Spivey's Blues Cavalcade" (Spivey LP1015) and "Shakey's Edmonton Blues" on "They Call Me Big Walter" (Blues Alliance TBA-13005).
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