Joe Louis Walker is a bona fide California 49er, born in San Francisco in 1949, one hundred years after the gold rush, on Christmas Day. As a teenager playing guitar in the City, he was introduced by Mike Bloomfield to the local blues scene, which of course overlapped with the "San Francisco Sound". Joe roomed with Mike, eventually burned out on the notorious over-the-top scene, went to gospel, stayed alive, and is back in the blues! Unique roots!

Joe is a facile and creative guitar player and as a singer has a “down-home” phrasing reminiscent of Otis Redding. Here on the central coast, he played a Victoria Hall show a few years back and also played at Avila Blues festival 2 years ago, backed by Debbie Davies band (Debbie says, “Joe is at the top of his game, and as always, one of my favs.”).

At the Vic show, Joe played a song called I ain't messin' around … with a fool like you. To this reviewer, that song, as played that night, was the pure “ freight train boogie ” – you know, that “CHUGGA CHUGGA WOO-OO” rhythm (f'rinstance, Little Richard said Lucille was a freight train song!). The same song on record however, on The Preacher and the President CD (1998), had a sound that was not as full and it didn't have the punch of the live show. The rest of that CD, while interesting, also seemed weak compared to the live shows.

Joe has 3 newer US CD releases, so those are reviewed here to see how he is doing more recently on digital plastic. The 3 CDs are varied in terms of instrumentation and arrangements, so Joe is clearly capable of moving in different musical directions. A fair number of the songs are mid-tempo blues, stitched together with tasty guitar breaks, with lyrics along the lines of either “Oh baby our love done gone wrong”, or “Oh baby our love so fine.” A few exceptions as far as lyrics go include the social commentary of The Preacher and the President on the older CD and a couple of straight gospel numbers on the newer ones.