Search - Phillip Walker :: Live at Biscuits & Blues

Singer-guitarist Phillip Walker was part of the post-World War II musical migration to California that transplanted Gulf Coast blues styles to fertile new ground. His T-Bone Walker-influenced sound, captured in concert on this disc, combines the lessons learned from his early work with Louisiana zydeco legend Clifton Chenier with a hard-edged Texas blues attack, and he surrounds himself with the riffing horns of jump blues. Walker was well served by his participation on 1999's Lone Star Shootout session with Lonnie Brooks and Long John Hunter, but the true depth and diversity of his talents are on better display here. The set starts with a bright, horn-powered rendition of Walker's "Hello My Darling" breakout single from the late '50s before rolling through more modern material like the Robert Cray hit "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," a Walker original. But it is on Jimmy McCracklin's down and dirty "Think"--with Charlie Musselwhite adding some harmonica and a smoldering Angela Strehli trading vocal verses--that Walker hits his stride. An uptempo version of the Ann Peebles Stax standard "Breaking Up Somebody's Home" is an added treat, and the swinging and soulful rendition of Lowell Fulson's classic "Reconsider Baby," complete with some hot harp from Rick (Little Charlie and the Nightcats) Estrin, is nothing short of a masterpiece. Walker's tough Texas guitar tone deftly slices through the big-band accompaniment, and in the process he recaptures, personalizes, and updates the spirit of the quintessential West Coast blues sound. --Michael Point