Roots Music Report<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\nHot on the heels of the success of \u201cIf Nothing Ever Matters\u201d, comes this powerful live set from Wee Willie Walker and The Greaseland All Stars.<\/p>\n
Recorded by NRK, Norwegian Radio and \u00a0aired live as it went down, the performance captured here proves that not only is Willie Walker as good as he ever was, he might just be at the very peak of his powers!<\/p>\n
Introduced as \u201cThe Greatest Soul Singer Alive Today\u201d, the statement sound boastful but listen to the intro of \u201cA Change Is Gonna Come\u201d then try to tell us otherwise. \u00a0Willie leaves no doubt that he is !00% the real thing, as he makes his way through is hold classics, new songs and Soul\/Blues standards that lesser singers would embarrass themselves with if they attempted them.<\/p>\n
The band is The Greaseland All Stars, playing with a confidence, looseness and abandon that you would be hard pressed to find this side of King Curtis\u2019 Kingpins. This is not a \u201cbackup band\u201d, these are monsters.<\/p>\n
At Little Village, we were so blown away with the results that we decided we simply HAD to put this CD out as soon as possible. As a lover of Soul and Blues music, YOU will be the true beneficiary of the efforts put forth here.<\/p>\n
The catalyst for the recording of\u00a0If Nothing Ever Changes\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>came when multi-Blues Music Award-winning singer\/harmonica player Rick Estrin was introduced to Walker by Willie\u2019s manager, Julia Schroeder, and instantly realized that this was the voice he\u2019d remembered from hearing on some Goldwax and Chess 45s in his collection. And when Estrin heard how strong and vibrant Walker\u2019s vocals still were, the idea was hatched, along with all-star guitarist Kid Andersen, to record a new album on Walker. During the sessions recorded with a host of A-list West Coast musicians, keyboard player Jim Pugh, himself a veteran of scores of major blues and roots recordings (Robert Cray, B.B. King, Etta James) and live dates (Johnnie Taylor, Little Milton), mentioned his idea of creating the Little Village Foundation to record artists such as Walker. As Estrin then states in the album liner notes, \u201cWe found our platform for launching this record into the world. All we wanted to do was to make music with Willie, and do what WE could to get him heard in the setting he deserves. Nobody was thinking about getting paid, it was all for the common love of this beautiful and near extinct music.\u201d<\/p>\nWillie Walker was a member of the gospel group the Redemption Harmonizers when he left Memphis and headed to Minneapolis in 1960. With the Twin Cities having been his base of operations since then, Walker proceeded to work with a number of area gospel groups, before subsequent visits back to Memphis in the \u201860s landed him recording dates with Goldwax Records. He cut nine sides for Goldwax, which released some on their imprint and also leased four of them to Chess Records subsidiary, Check Records. Some of his singles included \u201cYou Name It, I\u2019ve Had It\u201d and \u201cFrom Warm, to Cool, to Cold,\u201d which were recognized as gems of soul music, but not widely released and known only to true music aficionados.<\/p>\n
Before recording his latest album, Walker had recorded three albums over the past 10 years backed by hot local Twin Cities soul\/R&B band The Butanes, which though with limited distribution and publicity, still garnered critical acclaim and kept Walker and the band busy playing local and regional dates.<\/p>\n
If Nothing Ever Changes<\/em><\/strong>, his Little Village label debut, brings Willie Walker to the forefront with the support of some marquee names of West Coast blues and soul serving as his backing band.\u00a0\u00a0Walker described the resulting recording sessions as a \u201chouseful of love. I didn\u2019t know them, but they all knew me and immediately we were like family,\u201d he recalls. With Estrin producing and Kid at the helm, the artists assembled for the sessions represent some of the strongest talent of today\u2019s West Coast Blues scene:\u00a0 Jim Pugh \u2013 keyboard player and founder of the Little Village Foundation; Rusty Zinn \u2013 a guitarist whose resume includes recordings with Kim Wilson and Sly Dunbar; Robert Welsh, guitarist with Elvin Bishop; bassist Randy Bermudes of The Fabulous Thunderbirds and, vocalist Curtis Salgado, whose group The Nighthawks inspired John Belushi to create the Blues Brothers \u2013 just to name a few.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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