Witness to The Times,

Joe Louis Walker deserves all the respect he gets, and he gets a lot - as a singer, a producer, a guitarist in multiple styles, a songwriter, and a harmonica player. But that doesn't prevent his first album for the Stony Plain label from being something of a mixed bag. One of Walker's great strengths is the authority with which he can play several different varieties of blues: his version of "It's a Shame" is a supremely confident, horn-driven Chicago blues exercise, while "Midnight Train" evokes the subtler chug of a John Lee Hooker song. "Lover's Holiday" (a lovely duet with Shemekia Copeland) is New Orleans-style R&B, and "Hustlin'" features some very fine barrelhouse piano by Bruce Katz. And that's just the first four tracks, in order…