Legendary bluesman Joe Louis Walker has a message for The Donald
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Joe Louis Walker doesn’t know Donald Trump.
He’s only met him once, at his Trump Towers hotel in New York City.
That was a long time ago.
A lifetime for both.
“He seemed personable. We shook hands.
“That was my only experience.
“I don’t know the man.”
But Walker doesn’t like America’s top dog, either.
So don’t expect him to say anything nice about that dog Saturday night, when the multi-Grammy-winning blues guitarist plays here at Peter’s Players.
That’s because Walker’s on a crusade — not just by himself — but to get all singers and musicians to speak out about Trump and what he is doing, but about the one percenters are doing to his country and yours.
He particularly wants everyone to “speak out against racism.”
Walker is not new to politics and power — even blues royalty.
Ironically, in 1998 he released an album entitled The Preacher and the President.
He played at the inauguration of George W. Bush and was in the band with guitar legend B.B. King when he was honoured at the Kennedy Centre by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
In 1993 Walker was featured in a duet with King on his 1993 Grammy-winning Blues Summit album with the song Merle Haggard’s Everybody’s Had the Blues. Three years later Walker accompanied James Cotton when that great guitarist won the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album for Deep In The Blues.
Walker is no individual award-winning slouch either.
He’s won three prestigious Blues Music Awards (formerly the W.C. Handy Blues Award), two for Contemporary Male Artist of the Year in 1988 and 1991, and best band in 1996. And he has four dozen nominations.
He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
So he knows his blues — intimately. And has come by it honestly.
Born in the Bay of San Francisco, Christmas Day 1949, he began playing at 8 and by 16 was a regular on the Bay Area music scene, eventually becoming a regular at the famed Matrix and Filmore West clubs. He studied music and English at San Francisco State University, and hung out with other emerging stars like the electric Jimi Hendrix and frenetic Janis Joplin.
Emerging from the drug-crazed, flower powered, psychedelic ’60s, into the eclectic ’70s, Walker was playing among some heady company, including fellow locals Jerry Garcia and Carlos Santana among many other six-string virtuosos.
While he has partied and played with Hendrix and like, experimenting with other types of music, he’s remained true to his blues roots.
That’s where his heart and soul are today.
And his voice and sound.
Memorable and moving.
Listen to him and you’ll get an earful you’ll actually enjoy and not feel as if he’s preaching at you.
You’ll come away part of his flock.
He’s just back from a tour of Europe, where he says the blues remains universal.
