Junior Walker

Anybody interested in Don Byron gets his range, and his willingness to try almost anything that tickles his fancy, whether it be klezmer, swing, funk, out jazz, blues or funky soul. He explores and leaves his mark on something and moves on. From Music for Six Musicians and Tuskegee Experiments to Nu Blaxploitation and Bug Music, from Fine Line: Arias and Lieder and Plays the Music of Mickey Katz to Ivey-Divey, Byron has explored - not usually reverently - his inspirations and curiosities with mixed results, but it's the investigation that counts for him in the first place. Do the Boomerang: The Music of Junior Walker is a curious outing in that Walker didn't always write his own material, but he wrote enough of it (five cuts on this set) and, like Byron, put an indelible stamp on anything he took on, from singing to blowing the saxophone. Byron assembled a dream band for this offering that includes guitarist David Gilmore…

Blues guitarist and singer/songwriter Robert "Bilbo" Walker was raised in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Born February 19, 1937, on the Borden Plantation in Clarksdale, Walker counts Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Chuck Berry, and Ike Turner among his early stylistic influences. He lives in California and gets back to Mississippi frequently, and it shows. The music Walker and his bandmates produce on their two Rooster Blues releases, 1997's Promised Land and 2001's Rock the Night….

"Messin' With The Kid", on which Wells comes on like a young Muddy, proved to be a great success in the clubs and even provoked a response from Muddy, which he typically called "Messin' With The Man". The rest of the session produced another version of "So Tired" and a further attempt to emulate the hit formula of "Little By Little". It was called "You Sure Look Good To Me" and must have made some impression, for it turns up word-for-word three years later masquerading as "Oo-Wee Baby" on the Chess "Folk Festival Of The Blues" album.

The music Earl Hooker and Junior Wells made together demonstrates the blues in transition, still upholding its traditions but recasting them in a format that reflected the musical taste of contemporary black society. Shortly after these records were produced, the Blues Boom shifted the music’s focus on to young white audiences. The tracks featured here represent some of the last instances of Chicago blues being produced for the artists’ own community.