T-Bone went on to record some excellent work in 1953 with Dave Bartholomews band (the man and band behind Fats Domino and his string of hits). This work is regarded as his finest with the Imperial label.

By 1955 the touring and years of excessive drinking was paying its toll on T-Bone. He was having many health problems including ulcers and he had to have a stomach operation. He was forced to break up his band but was still performing less demanding shows around the bay area and the occasional tour. Following his departure from Imperial he signed with Atlantic in 1955. These recordings are excellent and can be found on an album released in 1960.

The late 50's and early 60's bought some quiet years for T-Bone as as the rock 'n' roll of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, the thick vocals of The Platters and The Drifters, and the soul of the new wave of artists like Ray Charles and James Brown began to fill the industry and pushed the blues into the background. Europe was still quite new territory for traditional American Blues so T-Bone joined forces with other blues luminaries to tour, and in 1962 in Hamburg, Germany, he recorded "The Original American Folk Blues Festival" playing and singing on a few tracks and playing piano backing behind John Lee Hooker (no small feat) as well as guitar on other tracks.

Things turned around by the mid sixties and he found a new audience with the white middle class, playing at folk clubs, colleges and playing more European festival tours. T-Bone continued to record through the sixties and he made some excellent recordings for the Bluesway label in 1967 and 1968. In 1970 T-Bone was awarded a Grammy for his album "Good Feeling" he had recorded in France for Polydor in 1968. Following a recurrence of ulcer problems in 1974, T-Bone was admitted to the Vernon Convalescent Hospital in Los Angeles for the treatment of pneumonia. He passed away on the 16th of March 1975.