With artwork which looks like a DC comics cover, Joe Louis Walker’s album sets the tone from the off that this is going to be an album that exudes spirit and a sense of adventure. The title, ‘everybody wants a piece’, says it all – summing up Joe’s half a century career in the music business – and yet there’s no sign that the man himself is in any way jaded by his experiences. Indeed, press release aside, the listener could easily be fooled into thinking that the sparkling wit, the electric riffs and gutsy solos were the work of a fresh-faced entertainer desperate to make his mark in the world so energetic is Joe’s delivery, and, over the course of eleven scintillating tracks, Joe does a grand job of demonstrating just why he’s such a revered name in the blues.
The album kicks off with the funky title track, Joe laying down the law with a blistering solo that wails like a cat on a hot tin roof as the rhythm section underpin his fiery delivery with power and precision. It’s a great opening track and Joe alternates between smooth, creamy vocals and a heroic performance on the fretboard that has much in common with Hendrix. ‘Do I love her’ is no less impressive, recalling the likes of Cream and John Mayall as the band deliver traditional blues with a spark that threatens to explode into a fireball. This is what the blues should sound like, all heart and soul with a raw, gutsy performance and at least one eye on the future even whilst the other roves to the classics of the past. As such the song references Muddy Waters and rocks like the proverbial hurricane at the same time. Next up is a slick slab of rock ‘n’ roll in the form of the countrified ‘buzz on you’ which is a smooth track that feels like it should be the mandatory soundtrack for any movie scene filmed in a fifties-style diner with the jazzy piano work recalling Chuck Leavell and more than a hint of the stones shot through the track’s DNA. Better still is the weary ‘black and blue’ which details the break-up of a relationship with heart-breaking honesty and which delivers some of the album’s most remarkable soloing where Joe uses his instrument to articulate heartbreak with more poignancy than any simple lyric could. It’s back to a funkier vibe, however, for the toe-tapping ‘witchcraft’ which mixes funk and soul to impossibly addictive effect.
With the album flying by at a cracking pace, ‘one sunny day’ does not stop to admire the scenery, but ups things a notch instead with wild, honkey-tonk piano and some absolutely cracking guitar work. This is an axe-slinger’s dream of an album, and Joe lives up to the heroic cover art by delivering guitar lines that simple sizzle out of the speakers. This is an artist at the very top of his game and, if the ears are to be believed, loving every second of it. In contrast Joe takes a jazzier route on the beautiful, organ-enriched ‘gospel blues’, an instrumental work that is powerful enough to have grown men weeping in the aisles as Joe’s soloing approaches the transcendental. The archetypal blues song, if you have ever imagined a down-town bar, wreathed with smoke and serving smooth whiskey, then this is undoubtedly the soundtrack with which you accompanied the image, only ramped up to eleven with some of the best guitar playing you could wish for. It’s a return to that smooth funky sound with ‘wade in the water’, a soulful piece that is one part deep purple, one part Buddy Guy and one part Muddy Waters. It’s beautifully soulful, yet bouncy and light and the result is a track that makes you want to leap from your chair so insistent is the melody. Similarly possessed of a desire to make even the most recalcitrant listener dance, ‘man of many words’ offers up brass, a gritty vocal and a sense of fun that is inescapable. Trad blues abound in ‘young girls blues’, and ’35 years’, the album’s final song, is similarly rooted in the blues at its most recognisable, delivered with an acoustic shuffle that is so rooted in a danceable rhythm that you’ll be reaching for the remote the second the disc spins to a halt.
Joe Louis Walker may have fifty-odd years in the industry, but he plays with the fire and fury of an artist still desperate to prove himself. Possessed of a voice that captures the smooth tones of Robert Cray and the grit of Buddy Guy, Joe can do hard hitting rock ‘n’ roll just as easily as he can calm the senses with a beautiful slow blues number and he does both these things and everything in between over the course of this blistering album. Able to make his guitar sing like an angry angel, Joe’s voice may be a highlight, but his playing is absolutely key and it’s hard to believe that, at some point in his career, Joe didn’t hook up with a certain pointy eared gentleman at the crossroads. In a year of stand-out blues albums, Joe Louis Walker has still managed to up the game with ‘Everybody wants a piece’ – this is a near perfect album that you’ll still be playing to your friends in years to come, it’s that good.
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