Joe Louis Walker is an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer.
Career
Joe Louis Walker was born in 1949 in San Francisco. He came from a musical family, amidst the early influences of T-Bone Walker, BB King, Meade Lux Lewis, Amos Milburn, and Pete Johnson. Walker first picked up the guitar at the age of 8 and became a known quantity within the Bay Area music scene by the age of 16. Whilst publicly performing through his teens, he soaked up many more influences (especially vocalists like Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Bobby Womack & Otis Redding). Over these early years, Walker's musical pupilage saw him playing with John Lee Hooker, JJ Malone, Buddy Miles, Otis Rush, Thelonious Monk, The Soul Stirrers, Willie Dixon, Charlie Musselwhite, Steve Miller, Nick Lowe, John Mayall, Earl Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix. By 1968, he had forged a close friendship with Mike Bloomfield; they had been roommates for many years until Bloomfield's untimely death.
This event was the catalyst that forced Walker into an immediate lifestyle change. He left the world of the blues and enrolled himself at San Francisco State University, achieving a degree in Music & English. Throughout this time, Walker was regularly performing with "The Spiritual Corinthians "gospel quartet". After a 1985 performance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, he was inspired to return to his blues roots whereupon he formed the "Bosstalkers" and signed to the Hightone label. Under the auspices of Bruce Bromberg & Dennis Walker, his debut album "Cold Is The Night" was released in 1986. He began a worldwide touring schedule, delivering a further 4 releases in succession for Hightone Records ("The Gift" 1988, "Blue Soul" 1989, "Live At Slims Vol 1" 1991, & "Live At Slims Volume 2" 1992).
After the long partnership with Hightone, JLW was signed by Polygram to their Verve/Gitanes label. His first of many Polygram releases ensued with "Blues Survivor" in 1993. This marked the beginning of an eclectic JLW era that merged many of his gospel, jazz, soul, funk and rock influences with his trademark blues sensibilities. 1993 also saw the release of BB King's Grammy Winning "Blues Summit" album, which featured a duet with JLW (a Walker original, "Everybody's Had the Blues"). This was followed up by a live DVD release, featuring another duet with Walker (a rendition of "T-Bone Shuffle").
"JLW" was released in 1994, featuring guests such as James Cotton, Branford Marsalis, and the Tower Of Power Horn-section. During this period, Walker's touring schedule had seen many reappearances at the world's most renowned music festivals (North Sea Jazz, Peer, Montreaux, Glastonbury, The Super Dome, San Francisco Festival, Russian River Jazz, Monterey, Jazz & Heritage, Sapporo Japan, Pistoia Italy, Byron Bay Australia, Cognac France, Ospel, Notodden Norway, Lucerne Switzerland, Beacon Theatre New York, etc.). JLW also spent many years covering all the major western TV networks (Conan O'Brien, Imus, Jools Holland UK, Inauguration for George W. Bush, inducting BB King for President Bill Clinton & Hillary Rodham Clinton into the Kennedy Centre Honors, Ohne Filter Germany, Rock n' Roll Hall Of Fame) as well as numerous French, Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Irish, Spanish, Brazilian, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Taiwanese, Australian and ex-Iron Curtain TV networks.
"Blues Of The Month Club" was released in 1995, and was the first of three JLW albums that were co-produced with Steve Cropper (NB. this album also featured appearances from The Memphis Horns & The Spiritual Corinthians). This was followed up by the release of "Great Guitars" in 1997, which became known as one of the best selling blues albums of the decade. Joe assembled a collection of friends & luminaries on this release, creating a body of work that was to become a representation of its era. This myriad of album guests included Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Otis Rush, Scotty Moore, Robert Lockwood Jr], Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Steve Cropper, Little Charlie Baty, Tower Of Power Horns, Ike Turner and others.
Also in 1996 JLW played guitar on James Cotton's "Deep in the Blues" a Grammy winning "Best Traditional Blues Album". In addition JLW won his third W.C. Handy Award for "Band of the Year" (1996) which was preceded by two W.C. Handy Awards for "Contemporary Male Artist of the Year" (1988 & 1991). JLW also won the 1995 Bammy (Bay Area Music Award) for Blues Musician of the Year. He then released "Preacher & The President" in 1998 and "Silvertone Blues" in 1999 (his 6th album for Polygram). This stream of albums continued with "In The Morning" (Telarc 2002), "Pasa Tiempo" (Evidence 2002), "Guitar Brothers" (JSP 2002), "She's My Money Maker" (JSP 2003), "Ridin' High" (Hightone 2003), "New Direction" (Provogue 2004) and "Playin' Dirty" (JSP 2006).
In 2002, he featured on the Bo Diddley tribute album Hey Bo Diddley - A Tribute!, performing the song "Who Do You Love".
March 2008, JLW has signed to Stony Plain Records and is recording his first album for the label in April (produced by Duke Robillard).
An attractive feature of his work is his frequent recourse to older material or playing styles, which reveals his wide-ranging knowledge of blues history.[1]
Discography
Albums
- Cold Is The Night (Hightone, 1986)
- The Gift (Hightone, 1988)
- Blue Soul (Hightone, 1989)
- Live At Slim's, Volume One (Hightone, 1991)
- Live At Slim's, Volume Two (Hightone, 1992)
- Blues Survivor (Polydor/Polygram, 1993)
- JLW (Polydor/Polygram, 1994)
- Blues Of The Month Club (Polydor/Polygram, 1995)
- Great Guitars (Polydor/Polygram, 1997)
- Preacher And The President (Polydor/Polygram, 1998)
- Silvertone Blues (Polydor/Polygram, 1999)
- In the Morning (Telarc, 2002)
- Pasa Tiempo (Evidence Music, 2002)
- Guitar Brothers (JSP Records, 2002)
- She's My Money Maker (JSP, 2002/03)
- Ridin' High (Hightone, 2003)
- New Direction (Provogue, 2004)
- Playin' Dirty (JSP, 2006)
- Between A Rock And The Blues (Joe Louis Walker album) (Stony Plain Music, 2009)
DVDs
- Live At 'On Broadway' (Blues Express, 2001)
- Joe Louis Walker in Concert (inakoustik, 2003)
See also
References
External links
Artist Site: http://www.myspace.com/joelouiswalker
