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Joe Louis Walker
IN THE MORNING
(TELARC)

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Walker’s latest attests that this underrated San Francisco bluesman is still at the height of his powers. Although In the Morning is more low-key than his other recent albums, it’s obvious from the first cries of his voice (on the blues-rumba hybrid "You’re Just About To Lose Your Clown") that few have the range or the emotional grip of his huge, red clay sound, which acknowledges its debt to gospel training in the ebullient howler "Where Jesus Leads." There’s also a tightly wound energy to his guitar playing — the way he sprays rippling single notes through the chords of his rumbling, old-fashioned rhythm tones. Or the way he turns his solos into keening high-wire acts as he bends strings back and forth, almost making his lines tumble out of tune, but always easing them back in place with something akin to a sigh of emotional perfection. "If This Is Love (I’d Rather Have the Blues)" is the kind of exercise in heartache we’ve come to expect from Walker’s pen. More surprising is the inclusion of the Rolling Stones’ instrumental "2120 South Michigan Avenue," where he cops Hendrix as he trades solos with G.E. Smith, who plays second fiddle throughout this album.

BY TED DROZDOWSKI

Issue Date: September 26 - October 3, 2002
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