Lakeport >> Most blues players spend their lives admiring the greats from afar. Few get to step up on stage with one of their idols. But blues player Joe Louis Walker had that opportunity when he got to know the legendary B.B. King. Walker played with King on King’s Blues Summit album and another live record. And Walker didn’t just perform with King — he turned to him for advice on things as mundane as taxes.
Walker was always eager to lend King an ear.
“When someone like that speaks you listen. That’s what I did,” he said. “I do a lot of playing, a lot of talking and a lot listening.”
His methods are certainly effective. Over the years Walker has won a Blues Music Award four times. In 2013 he was inducted into the Blues Music Hall of Fame. He’s appeared on a number of Grammy-winning albums. Most recently he snagged 2016 Blues Foundation Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year.
Walker was hard-pressed to give a descriptor to his music. He just laughed and called it, “Joe Louis Walker blues.”
In his 30-year career, Walker has recorded 25 albums. But he hasn’t done it all on his own. He’s a big believer in collaboration, and he’s been lucky enough to work with many talented producers and record companies. He’s always open to suggestions and is quick to try something new. If he weren’t, he probably wouldn’t have so much music under his belt.
It’s how all the successful musicians have worked, including Paul McCartney. If you get stuck, a collaborator can help get things moving again. Sometimes the simplest suggestion brings an entire idea to fruition. “The one thing that a smart writer does … they work with other people,” Walker said. “It brings something different out of you.”
Being a musician isn’t all about writing songs. Getting up on stage and interacting with the audience is a real highlight of working in the business. It’s difficult to explain the rush that comes when 9,000 people are reacting to the vibes you’re sending out. “I don’t know if there’s anything else like it,” said Walker.
Before the record deals and the awards, Walker was just a kid with a guitar. Coming from a musical family, he’d always been more interested in notes and chords than football fields, and so at age 12 he started playing. He wasn’t inspired by any one musician — he was inspired by them all. He found excitement in the guitar, and fulfillment in creating something special.
It still holds true today, which is why Walker struggled to compare his music to anyone else, past or present. “It’s a combination of things I have been inspired by and involved in over the years,” he explained.
Although he might have trouble putting a label on his music, it does fall into the blues category. While he spent some time playing gospel music, needing a change of pace from the blues, he just couldn’t seem to stay away from the genre. After a decade away, he returned to his first love. “I think the thing that I like about blues more than a lot of other genres is that blues equates to creditability,” he said. “By that I mean when you go to concert and you hear the blues.”
It’s honest music, free of smoke machines and backup dancers. When blues musicians sing, they’re laying bare their souls, without the help of auto-tune. Walker described million-dollar pop concerts — Taylor Swift’s and Beyonce’s tours, for example — as “music and aerobics,” adding, “Nobody can dance that much and sing … the blues is sort of the opposite end of that spectrum.”
Joe Louis Walker will be playing at the Soper Reese Theatre, 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, tonight at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20, $18 and $15 and are available at SoperReeseTheatre.com or at the Travel Center in Lakeport.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
