Archive Review: Joe Louis Walker’s Witness To the Blues (2008)

A phenomenal guitarist, a singer with a warm, soulful voice, a solid songwriter, and a dynamic showman – despite these assets, bluesman Joe Louis Walker still seems to fly under the mainstream music fan’s radar. ‘Tis a shame, too, ‘cause Walker possesses credentials that would satisfy and pacify any non-believer that might question his pedigree (or his sincerity), and he has the musical chops to backstop any argument.

Walker has performed for paupers and presidents; held his ground on stages around the world alongside larger-than-life talents like Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker, Michael Bloomfield, and B.B. King; and he has a vast musical experience that runs the gamut from psychedelic rock and gospel to soul and the blues. He’s been chosen by folks like Bonnie Raitt, Ike Turner, Taj Mahal, and Branford Marsalis to back their play in the studio. In other words, you can’t deny that this is one artist that walks the walk...

Joe Louis Walker’s Witness To the Blues

Witness To the Blues is Walker’s latest, a stunning collection of rambling soul, bluesy guitar, big band blues, and rambunctious R&B. Produced with a deft hand by six-string wizard Duke Robillard – who knows his own way around a fretboard – the collaboration between two accomplished musicians results in near-flawless performances on half-a-dozen Walker originals and a handful of choice covers. Walker’s studio band includes top-notch musicians from the blues and jazz worlds, talents like keyboardist Bruce Katz, saxman Doug James, and drummer Mark Teixeira; Robillard even drops his axe in the groove on a number of songs.

Witness To the Blues is bursting at the seams with great songs and enthusiastic performances. For instance, “Midnight Train” is a jumpin’, jivin’ party on the rails, the band laying down a locomotive beat while Walker adds coal to the fire with his imaginative guitarplay, which flays back-and-forth between Texas electric-blues and Scotty Moore-styled roots-rockabilly. A duet with the incredible Shemekia Copeland, “Lover’s Holiday,” is a soulful romp reminiscent of the best early ‘70s R&B, with keyboardist Katz playing on the Booker T edge while Walker and Copeland’s soaring voices wrap around your eardrums like sugar-n-spice.

The traditional blues-blast “Rollin’ & Tumblin’” is a swinging, echo-laden rocker with haunting, swampadelic guitar and New Orleans-style piano-pounding. “Keep On Believin’” is a perfect example of old-school Stax soul, delivered with gospel fervor and graced with butterfly-fretwork, magnificent B3 organ fills, and pleading vocal harmonies. Another trad cut, “Sugar Mama,” is lifted by Katz’s barrelhouse piano runs, with Robillard’s elegant, jazzy rhythm guitar laying in the cut behind Walker’s raw, ragged solos and Sonny Boy-styled blasts of mouth harp.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

This isn’t music to change the world, but rather tones to sooth your soul. Witness To the Blues revels in the sheer joy that Joe Louis Walker and his kindred spirits achieve by playing the music they love. It’s contagious, and just one spin of Witness To the Blues will have you hooked as well. (Stony Plain Records, released 2008)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine...