September 28 - October 4, 1995

ANOTHER KNOCKOUT: Because he was born on Christmas Day and raised in a religious family, it makes karmic sense that Joe Louis Walker eventually wound up singing and playing in a gospel quartet. But the calling of the blues can be powerful too, and it has claimed Walker as one of its prophets.

"I have one foot in the contemporary and one foot in the traditional blues," Walker says. "That's the way I look at myself. I've opened up for people like Muddy Waters, Freddie King, Mississippi Fred McDowell, B.B. King and Otis Rush and I've performed with a lot of the younger guys--Little Charlie and The Nightcats, Ronnie Earl, Robert Cray, Kim Wilson and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, just a whole bunch of 'em."

(If you're tempted to dismiss Walker as a name dropper--don't. He's led a life that has connected him to some people with names that make your jaw drop. Stay tuned, more are on the way.)

His new album, Blues Of The Month Club, has full flavors from the past and present that will last a lot longer than its title might suggest. His guitar style mixes single-line stinging Chicago-inspired blues with fluid, majestic tones, and his full-chested vocals testify to his ability to rock anything from a brick church to a corrugated tin roadhouse.

It was produced (get ready for another drop) by Steve Cropper, the rhythm and blues guitarist of Booker T. and the MGs fame. Cropper's songwriting credits include "In The Midnight Hour," "Knock On Wood," "Soul Man" and "(Sittin' on) The Dock Of The Bay." The man is a genuine legend.

Walker and Cropper met while both were performing at a George Bush inaugural ball in '88. The show was divided into soul and blues segments, with Cropper and Walker performing in both halves. So they chatted cordially during rehearsal, played together as part of huge all-star ensembles and went their separate ways until meeting up at a festival in California a year-and-a-half ago.

"It just happened we were performing a couple of acts before they were, so he got a chance to hear me," Walker says. "He heard me and it wasn't so far away from what he does. So we connected and corresponded and we finally got it together. It was a blessing to have him there (in the studio) in all aspects, personal, musical, any way you want to put it. He has the same love for music that he had when he was a kid growing up in Mississippi and Memphis, and that's rare. That's rare for somebody who's had as much success as he's had and still has. There's not one egotistical bone in his body."

Cropper helped Walker forge an album full of glistening, lean and powerful blues. One of the tastiest tracks is "Lost Heart," a muscular rocker that hugs and shakes you with soul-drenched organ, the mighty Memphis Horns, so-sweet background harmonies by The Imperfections and Walker's impassioned vocals.

It's obvious his 10 years playing and singing gospel with the Spiritual Corinthians really pays off in the secular world. It's also obvious Walker doesn't think that way.

"You can borrow a little bit of that energy, but you can never co-opt it because it's coming from a different place," he says quietly. "An artist can emulate a little bit of it--Sam Cooke sounded a little bit gospely when he did pop music--but if you really want to hear Sam Cooke sound great, you've got to go back to the Soul Stirrers."

Walker left the Corinthians in '85, when he decided his songwriting was more appropriate for a return to the blues he had abandoned a decade earlier. The blues are his true musical love, but not his first.

The 45-year-old grew up in San Francisco, coming of age in the eye of the psychotropic storm of the 1960s. As a teenager he played the lysergic rock the times and city called for. A couple of years later, Walker shared a house in the Haight-Ashbury district with Mike Bloomfield, the legendary blues-rock guitarist who was part of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and a founder of Electric Flag. Hanging out with Bloomfield he got to meet and jam with rock and blues luminaries Al Kooper, Buddy Miles, the Grateful Dead and Steve Miller. He even met Jimi Hendrix (ultimate name drop) and had a chance to jam with him, too, but passed it up.

"I sort of kicked myself because I didn't come down (to the session)," Walker says with a little laugh. "There are two times I kicked myself: I coulda come down and jammed with him, and I opened up for Muddy (Waters) for two weeks and Muddy used to tell me every night to come and jam and I'd never do it."

Don't pass up your chance to hear Joe Louis Walker and his band play under the stars behind the Rialto Theater, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, at 8 p.m. Friday, September 29. Tickets are $5.

LAST NOTES: Country superstar George Strait celebrates the release of a four-CD box set, Strait Out Of The Box, with a sold-out show Friday night at the TCC Arena.

Celtic harpist and storyteller Patrick Ball is in town that same night, at the Tucson Center for Performing Arts, 408 S. Sixth Ave. Advance tickets are $10.

Jonathan Richman returns to Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St., gurgling more of his childlike surf-folk-rock. Rainer and Caitlin von Schmidt open the $5 show.

And The Mollys round out the Friday night club list with the release of their new CD, This Is My Round, at the Chicago Bar, 5942 E. Speedway.

Debbie Davies used to play guitar in Albert Collins' band, but she's got her own group these days and she's playing St. Phillip's Plaza, 4380 N. Campbell Ave., on Saturday night. Tickets are $7 at the door.
--Michael Metger

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