Joe Louis Walker
Joe Louis Walker is a Blues Hall of Fame Inductee who is from San Francisco California. In his youth he was exposed to the records of great blues and Rock and Roll artists such as B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Meade Lux Lewis, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix and many others. After hearing a family member’s band, Joe decided to take up the guitar. He joined the musicians union and turned professional in his mid-teens. Through the years, Joe has performed or recorded with blues royalty such as Willie Dixon, B.B. King, James Cotton, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Earl Hooker and many more. His craft of playing guitar, singing and songwriting has brought him to the finest venues and festivals throughout the world. JLW was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2013 along side of Jimmie Rogers (The singing Brakeman) Earl Hooker and others.
Joe Louis Walker has a new album out titled “Blues Comin’ On” on Cleopatra Records. It features a helping hand from a slew of his contemporaries. Participants on the album include: Keb’ Mo’, Jorma Kaukonen, Waddy Wachtel, Eric Gales, John Sebastian, Albert Lee, Mitch Ryder, to name a few. This 12 song collection will keep your Blues Comin’ on… and then some! I recently talked with JLW about the making of the new album and his award winning career.
R.V.B. – Hello Joe… how are you doing today?
J.L.W. – I’m okay Rob… how are you?
R.V.B. – We have a little bit of a gray day here… how about by you?
J.L.W. – It’s the same thing for us here.
R.V.B. – A little gloomy… a little bluesy?
J.L.W. – Yep. You got it right.
R.V.B. – Congratulations on your new record. I’ve listened to it from start to finish. It flows very nicely. The blues just keeps coming on.
J.L.W. – We had a lot of fun making that record. I think it sort of comes through the news.
R.V.B. – You must have been busy on the phone because you got a lot of buddies involved with this.
J.L.W. – (Hahaha) Yeah!
R.V.B. – What was the process of making this record?
J.L.W. – I had some ideas and I had a few songs that hadn’t been finished. I made a live record/CD about a year ago “Viva Las Vegas” but we’ve been working on this studio record for a while with a bunch of friends. It’s about a couple of years actually. I was waiting for people’s schedules to open up so they could do it. People wanted to do it. Everybody was like ships in the night… everybody was on tour or doing something. I had to be patient and wait until people had the time to devote to doing something like this. It worked out alright. It was supposed to be a double album actually. There is 12 more songs but it would have been too much.
R.V.B. – We’ll at least you have more coming down the pike.
J.L.W. – Yeah that’s true… some for later, but this record was a lot of fun to make quite honestly.
R.V.B. – I can imagine. It has a diverse mix of blues. You have your standard blues… you have your shuffles. How did you decide which person was going to play on what track? It seems these guys have so much talent, they could play on any track.
J.L.W. – Some decisions were no-brainers. Like having Mitch Ryder sing on the soul song. We do a duet on that. And having Jesse Johnson play on the more funkier things. Albert Lee could play on the funkier things but I preferred for him to play on something with a little more musical changes, where he could play in a more gypsy style. You could of moved people around but I guess I had certain people in my ear for certain songs. In my head, I could hear them playing certain things. I could hear Jorma speaking out on Feed the Poor. Of course I’m from San Francisco, and I got to hear Jorma nine zillion times. I can hear Jorma’s guitar playing in my head. Not like the way he plays with Hot Tuna, but the way he plays with the Airplane… electrically, because he has a different choice of notes. The notes that he chooses are not the notes that a lot of other guitar players choose. I wanted to hear those notes in my music. Having Waddy is just like having a serious producer in the record. Waddy just didn’t play on the record but when I hit a brick wall with certain things… technical things… musical things… should it be less or more??? Waddy is a genius in production. That’s why Keith had him in the Winos. It’s like have having a producer on stage… a real producer. He can hear when something’s in the way or you don’t need something, or vice versa. Somebody will say that’s enough and he’ll say, no I hear a 12 string guitar – just faintly – in this section or that section. That’s the kind of guy that Waddy is. I had everybody in my mind. 7 & 7 is an old song that I used to hear the band Love do at the Fillmore Auditorium. Arthur is someone I looked up to as a teenager. There was no category for guys like him… still isn’t. I like the way Arlen Roth plays that psychabilly’ stuff. It sort of fit. You know, everything worked out.
R.V.B. – It sure did because it’s a very nice collection of songs. If you grew up in San Francisco, you were in the hotbed of great music. Who were your influences to get you to play the blues?
J.L.W. – When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my father would come home from his construction job, and he had a lot of extraneous things that he did, but one thing he did every day is set his little 45RPM player on the kitchen table, and as he was eating his cornbread and drinking milk, he would sit me on the table and he would play records… Sonny Boy Williams… Meade Lux Lewis… Joe Turner… Pete Johnson and T. Bone Walker. For me, it just became a thing of osmosis. My mother would be playing B.B. King… B.B. King… B.B. King. Being the youngest of five kids, my older brothers and sisters would be playing all the hits of the day… Little Richard… Chuck Berry… Elvis Presley… Jerry Lee Lewis… I’m talking about the late ‘50s. By the early ‘60s, we moved from one district to the Fillmore district. I went to Jr. High School about a block from the Fillmore Auditorium. The Fillmore was like Harlem. There were no hippies then. There were just Japanese, African American and Jewish neighborhoods. My father… more than anybody… just played the music all the time and I wanted to hear it all the time. It was just natural for me to pick up a guitar. I went to a catholic school for a while. At the time you could check out a musical instrument, like you could a library book. They had a violin… an accordion… a guitar… and of course the guitar was always checked out. I couldn’t get my hands on one. One thing led to another, I went to my cousin’s house… you know the cousins that you don’t see that often. We went to the other projects, across Fillmore Street, and I see there on the 3rd story, all these girls lined up. There were guys with guitars jamming. I said “Who’s that???” I open the door and it was all of my cousins... all four of them had a band. I said “I must be in Heaven.” One of my cousins left and turned professional, and I took his place. My mom brought me to a music teacher to learn some chords and some theory. When I was about 14, I joined the musicians union. We were playing quite steady and that’s what I’ve been doing all of my life. There are a few guitar players that were an influence and I got to know personally… Bloomfield is one of them. Earl Hooker and John Lee Hooker took me under their wings. A lot of older guys… Jimmy Rogers, and some other jazz players. Just to be quite honest, the people who got me started in music were my mother and father.
R.V.B. – Sounds like you were off to a nice start. You can hear that experience in your playing. You’ve been at it for a while. You always seem to come up with something new. You don’t seem to rest on your laurels. What kind of guitars do you use?
J.L.W. – I have a few. I play a Zemaitis guitar… which is a nice guitar. Of course I have several Les Paul’s. I have a Rozeo. It’s a J.L.W. model from Japan. I’m not one of those guys that are into vintage guitars. I used to be. To me a guitar is a piece of wood with strings on it. It could be a piece of expensive wood with strings on it, but it’s still just a piece of wood with strings… that’s all it is. It’s no more… it’s no less. This is my favorite guitar story. I got to know Lester Polsfuss… Les Paul… very good. He used to do these shows Lester and Chester… Les and Chet Atkins. They would do a duet at The Iridium. After the show, all these guitar players would go running over to Chet Atkins and ask “Mr. Atkins… what king of strings and pickups and cords do you use? What model and year is this and what kind of wood is it? What do you do to get this sound and that sound?” Les didn’t have too much of a filter. He went over and took Chet Atkins guitar and set it up on a stand and said “How does it sound now?”
R.V.B. – (Hahaha)
J.L.W. – (Hahaha) That’s how I feel. They don’t make a sound by themselves. (Hahaha) A person can get a Lucille but you’re not gonna sound like B.B. King. You can try and be like Albert King. You can get a Strat like Stevie Ray but you’re not gonna sound like him. What comes out of the guitar is basically what’s in the individual. What’s in your heart and soul, is what comes out through your hands. The notes go out and if it touches and reaches somebody, that’s all that matters. A guitar player like B.B. King… I got to know B.B. real good. I went to B.B.’s house and B.B. had every kind of guitar known to mankind. They got pictures of B.B. playing a Broadcaster. They got pictures of him playing a NoCaster. They got pictures of him playing a Gold Top Les Paul. I said “How many guitars do you play?” He said “Joe, I just kept experimenting with them until I thought I found the one that I like.” He loved those 355’s but it kept howling… because it had the F holes in it.
So he made a guitar that he liked. He made a solid body 355. Every Lucille that you see B.B. play is a solid body 355. Alex Lifeson from Rush plays one and Keith Richards does also but the difference from theirs and B.B.’s is that his has no F holes… it’s a solid body guitar. You have to look at it to notice it. He got tired of sticking rags in the holes. When you play at a decent volume you’ll get a nasty feedback hum. He told Gibson “Give me the same body… the same guitar… just ixnay on the F hole. (Hahaha) A regular 355 has a block running through it and the rest is hollow. He got tired of the block. Lucille is basically a solid body 355. His right arm blocks the view where the F hole should be. What he did was very smart.
R.V.B. – Yes those hollow bodies can feed back. What are some of your live performance highlights? What are some of your good memories?
J.L.W. – I’ve had a lot. I’ve been fortunate to have played with some great musicians. I’ve been hired for a lot of recording projects that I’d never thought I’d be on. Some of the shows that I’ve done… for a while I was in the Willie Dixon dream band. It was kinda cool because Willie would change up the personnel. One Willie Dixon dream band had me, Willie, a guy named Cash McCall… rest his heart, KoKo Taylor, Ronnie Wood… and Billy Preston. It was just wild. Then I was in another Willie Dixon dream band than also had Cash McCall, Rob Wasserman… rest his soul, Mose Allison… most of those guys are gone, Carey Bell and Al Duncan Jr.
R.V.B. – They sure were super groups.
J.L.W. – I’ll be damned, I’m the only one of those people still alive.
R.V.B. – It’s all that clean living that you do.
J.L.W. – You better believe it. I’m a vegetarian, I don’t drink and I don’t do that funny stuff (Hahaha)
R.V.B. – Good for you.
J.L.W. – I got a lot of clean livin’ here brother.
R.V.B. – What parts of the world has your music taken you to?
J.L.W. – Let’s see, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica, the Islands… Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, St Lucia… China… I was just in China in December, just before all this stuff started… Thailand, France, England, Spain, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel… you want me to keep going? (Haha)
R.V.B. – I get the general idea. It must be fun taking your craft and exploring all those places.
J.L.W. – Over the years you make a heck of a lot of Friends all over the world. You have to be part gypsy because of all the travel. People remember when you came to their town and you remember certain things. Sometimes 10 years can go by and the only way that you know what happened is if you go back and look at your schedule. Somebody will come up to you and say “Do you remember that time when you were in Sydney Australia and you and Warren Haynes were doing these cool solos and then you and him were in Melbourne? And all you guys playing at the big Byron Bay festival with Bob Dylan and all those people?” “Yeah I remember that.” “Do you remember the other times when you toured for a month with your own band and you went by the Great Barrier Reef? “No!!! I don’t remember.” I say I do so I don’t piss anybody off. (Haha) I have to say that I’ve really been blessed. I’ve gone from the projects to Paris so to speak.
R.V.B. – You have a great career going on. You’ve been recognized for all of your good work. How do you feel about being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame?
J.L.W. – It was sort of bitter sweet. To be honest, there’s about 90 Blues Hall of Fame’s but the one in Memphis is the real deal. It’s bitter sweet because Mike Bloomfield, who helped me when I was about 17 or 18, had just been inducted the year before me. Another guy that helped me, got inducted the same time I did… Earl Hooker. He and his cousin helped me quite a bit. To be inducted at the same time it was like “Oh Man!!!” Those guys turned on so many people. Although Earl Hooker didn’t get the same recognition that John Lee Hooker got. They’ve heard his music but they just didn’t know it was Earl.
R.V.B. - People in Europe seemed to know more about our blues artists than we did in America. Germany brought Earl Hooker over on their blues and folk festivals.
J.L.W. – Yeah… The American Folk Blues Festival by Lippman and Rau. There was about seven or eight of them. They brought Little Walter and Magic Sam over there. When Earl went over there, Magic Sam was on that tour as well. They had to share Earl’s guitar.
R.V.B. – You can say what you’re saying, but to get inducted at the same time as these guys is special. You’re actually carrying the torch now. People are saying the same thing about you. You’re doing a good service for the blues and the younger people playing the blues.
J.L.W. – I try to be supportive of the younger people coming up. I’ve taken quite a few of them on tour and I’m glad their careers are doing well. People like Vanessa Collier, Tyler Morris, Selwyn Birchwood and Sari Schoor… they are all having strong careers. Murali Coryell worked with me for a while. I’m glad that these young people are doing well. They all play it their own way. They all sound different, for the most part. I really think that they’re gonna keep it going. I’m happy for them… Christone Ingram “Kingfish.” You feel good when you see one of them take off, like Selwyn did a couple of years ago. Now Kingfish is taking off pretty good. “Everything is lookin’ good. Sometimes the blues comes in the night. All the accolades come in the day but the blues comes in the night.” Especially when you’re all alone… when nobody is there and you lose your recording contract and your records are getting canned. (Haha) You just think like this.
R.V.B. – It’s hard to stay on the top.
J.L.W. – It’s like Benjamin Franklin… “Perseverance, Perseverance, Perseverance, gets you through. The world is littered with fools.” That’s my favorite Ben Franklin quote.
R.V.B. – You must be itching to get out and play. Hopefully this virus thing will go away soon. We’re all missing the live music scene.
J.L.W. – Every musician I know is taking a pretty big hit right now… as with people in the restaurant and movie industry. Another one of my favorite quotes was when in World War II, the generals came to Churchill and said. “We have to give up something and art might be the thing we have to give up.” Churchill turned to them and said “If we give up art, what the hell are we fighting for?” (Hahaha) Are we really fighting to hear another politician talk? (Haha)
R.V.B. – That’s a good point. The Arts are what makes human beings human. Art is in the eye of the beholder. It’s creative, no matter which art it is… Fine arts… Stage… Painting… Music. Music has a great healing power.
J.L.W. – One of my cats will lock herself in my garage. The only way I can get her out is to start singing her name. When my kids were little I would sing to them. There’s something about the voice and music… it gives you comfort. When we get through whatever we get through here, music will be presented in a different way. People in Italy are singing opera out of their windows. It gives people solace. There was a guy in New York City singing The Impossible Dream out of his window. It just makes people feel better. Hopefully we’ll get back to normal, someday someway.
R.V.B. – Hopefully it will happen sooner than later. Thank you very much for taking this time to talk with me. Congratulations on your new record… congratulations on your career.
J.L.W. – Thank you Rob. I appreciate it man.
Press release single "Old Time Used To Be" with Keb' Mo'.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
This interview may not be reproduced in any part or form without permission from this site.
Special thanks to Glass Onyon PR
For more information on Joe Louis Walker visit Cleopatra Records www.CleopatraRecords.com
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