Joe Louis Walker Hornet's Nest (2014) Flac

Another winner sporting memorable songs ("T.L.C.," "Personal Baby," "City of Angels," "Prove Your Love"), sinuous grooves, and a whole lot of vicious guitar from one of the hottest relatively young bluesmen on the circuit. He goes it alone on the finale, "I'll Get to Heaven on My Own," sounding as conversant with the country blues tradition as he does with the contemporary stuff.

First and foremost, punters should be aware: Heritage of the Blues: Ridin' High Live is not a new live album by California bluesman Joe Louis Walker. This is a single-disc compilation from the two Live at Slim's dates in November of 1990 that were previously issued on Hightone. These sides have been remastered, and three unreleased tracks have been thrown in to the mix: "Alligator," "Prove Your Love," and "Personal Baby." That said, this is a very tight, completely rollicking set that showcases Walker at a turning point in his career when he was just becoming known on a national scale. His playing is fiery, raw, and stinging. His singing is full of emotion and good-natured blues grace, and his band kicks ass. The three new tracks do beg the question as to why they were left off the initial two albums, and revisiting "Don't Mess Up a Good Thing" with Texas blues and R&B goddess Angela Strehli still sends chills down the spine…

Forty Below Records releases Weight of the World, the new album by award-winning Blues and Roots musician Joe Louis Walker. A Blues Hall of Fame inductee and six-time Blues Music Award winner, NPR described Walker as "a legendary boundary-pushing icon of modern blues." His 2015 release, Everyone Wants a Piece, was nominated for the Contemporary Blues Grammy. In addition, Walker dueted with B.B. King on his Grammy Award-winning Blues Summit album and played guitar on James Cotton's Grammy-winning album Deep in the Blues.

In 1997, Dave Alvin – former guitarist and songwriter with the Blasters, and one of the leading advocates of classic blues and R&B on the West Coast roots rock scene – played a special show in Long Beach, California, where he was joined by three very special guests. The fabled Texas fiddler and guitarist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Chicago harmonica master Billy Boy Arnold, and San Francisco-born blues guitarist Joe Louis Walker all sat in with Alvin that evening, making for a very eventful evening for fans of blues and American roots music. The show was captured on tape, and Live in Long Beach 1997 allows listeners to hear Alvin mix it up on-stage with a few of his heroes. Songs include "Barn Burning", "Long White Cadillac", "I Wish You Would", "Chains of Love", "Jolie Blon", "Wabash Cannonball", and more.

Deep in the Blues is a fascinating jam session between James Cotton, guitarist Joe Louis Walker, and jazz bassist Charlie Haden. The trio runs through a number of classic blues songs written by Muddy Waters, Percy Mayfield, and Sonny Boy Williamson and a few originals by Walker and Cotton. The sound is intimate and raw, which is a welcome change from Cotton's usual overproduced records.

Joe Louis Walker can play guitar and that’s the truth. The Chicago-based blues singer has been a presence on that city’s music scene for decades now, releasing albums on an almost annual basis since the late 1980s. Alibums such as 1990’s Gift and 2003’s Between a Rock and the Blues reveal a musician with serious guitar chops as well as a gospel-tinged megaphone of a voice. Never a purist, Walker is unafraid to incorporate plenty of rock and roll and even a little funk into his arrangements. Hellfire is Walker’s first album for the blues standard-bearers over at Alligator Records, and the set is a knockout, showcasing a wide variety of approaches unified by his incendiary guitar throttling and those expressive, angst-ridden vocals.

Emotionally connected with gospel and soul as well as blues, Joe Louis Walker injects his confident singing and sophisticated, lyrical guitar-playing into an appealing program of eight originals and a song apiece from R&B great Ike Turner ("You've Got to Lose"), world-famous R&B scribe Dan Penn (with songwriting help from fellow Nashville resident Gary Nicholson on the title cut), and his dependable Bosstalkers band ("Second Street"). For certain, Walker's individual way with a song is memorable, inviting return listens. Special guests this time around include bass great Steve Cropper, who helped Walker produce the record; the ever-busy Memphis Horns; and, not least, the church singers The Spiritual Corinthians.

One of most celebrated and respected bluesmen working today, Joe Louis Walker, returns with some of the most electrifying recordings he’s done in his over 4 decade long career! This extraordinarily diverse set includes both incredible new compositions including the blues stomping opener “Uptown Girl Blues” and horn-powered “Bad Betty” as well as killer cover versions of The Eagles’ “Hotel California” and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves Of London!” Includes special guest performances by Waddy Wachtel, Doyle Bramhall II and the incomparable B.B. King Blues Band! Walker is a road dog like no other and he has a string of shows lined up to support this album and excite his enormously supportive fanbase!

Another overly polished effort that nevertheless packs a punch on many selections. Walker's songwriting is considerably less prominent, with only three self-penned tunes on the disc this time. Otis Blackwell's pulsating "On That Power Line" and the Don Gardner & Dee Dee Ford dustie "I Need Your Lovin'" receive spirited revivals, and there's an acoustic duet with James Cotton, "Going to Canada."