"The blues is dead."
Just a few years back, that was the word on the street and no one was arguing.
Then, about three or four years ago, the blues rose from the dead, dusted itself off and came roaring back with a vengeance. Not only were the old bluesmen regarded with a new respect and popularity, but a whole new generation stormed to the front demanding to be heard.
Among this new generation is Joe Louis Walker, appearing tomorrow night at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach.
Why are the blues so hot?
"Because the blues are on the airwaves," Walker said in an interview from his San Francisco home last week. "I'll always go search for the blues, and so will the hardcore fans, but you have to make the blues accessible to the folks on the periphery to keep the blues popular."
Walker, who just released his second album, "The Gift," on HighTone Records, said the key to keeping the blues on the radio is to get the larger companies to record the music.
"The major labels will support the blues if they see money being made," he said. "The blues have been perceived as the ghetto of the recording industry. The are getting respect now because of Robert (Cray) and others who are selling albums."
Echoing sentiments heard often among blues musicians, the 37-year-old guitarist said that young blacks are not learning their own musical heritage. "I get a lot of older blacks folks at my shows, but not many young ones," Walker said. "It's like jazz - you're not going to get a lot of young black guys playing jazz and blues because they're not perceived as glamorous."
"Wynton Marsalis and some of the other young guys in jazz are starting to change that somewhat," Walker said. "But compared to r&B or rap, forget it."
Walker grew up listening to his father's Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson records and was influenced early. "I didn't know it was the blues," he said. "It was just the music we had in our house."
When he was 12, his cousins started a blues band and allowed Walker to carry their equipment to gigs. When he was 14, his mother bought him his first guitar and weekly lessons for his birthday. "Within a few months, I was good enough that my cousins asked me to join them," Walker said.
Like the better-known Cray, Walker plays a hybrid funk-blues-soul style that is a departure from the more traditional sounds of earlier blues artists. His latest album draws as much from '60s rhythm and blues artists as it does from the old Chicago school of blues. Walker's music swings with a smooth rhythm that lends itself well to his polished vocals and linear guitar solos.
But if he is moving his brand of blues toward the future, he has never forgotten the past. Walker names Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Mississippi Fred McDowell among his favorite artists.
Last month, Walker had the opportunity to play with many of the great musicians from the generation before his. Cliff Antone invited him to join teh Antoen's West Traveling Blues Show, which included Jimmy Rogers, James Cotton and Albert Collins.
"It was a dream come true," Walker said. "It was like a paid vacation."
The modest success of Walker's two HighTone albums led to an invitation to tour Europe last year. "The fans over there are 100 percent gung-ho," he said. "They don't have the opportunity to hear all the artists we do, so after two weeks of publicity the people are geared up."
© Copyright 2003 Jim Trageser