Celebrate your sweetheart at the Minnesota Music Café with Willie and We "R" on Valentine's Day!
Doors are at 3, music starts at 4......Tickets are available for $5 in advance at the Minnesota Music Café and $8 at the door......
Original information for this event: Minnesota Music Cafe
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Willie Walker, Soul Survivor
Sometime in 1968, Willie Walker, sometimes known as Wee Willie Walker, recorded his final tracks for Goldwax Records. Goldwax was once the home of one of the premier Soul singers of all, James Carr, as well as Spencer Wiggins, Louis Williams and the Ovations and a host of others. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Walker had laid down nine sides for the Memphis based company. That's an odd number, which makes me want to believe there's at least one more side out there.
Throughout the time he recorded in Memphis, he lived in Minnesota, and still does. The circumstances surrounding it all are rather unique but not sensational; as many others‚ life stories would be. The most spectacular part of it all was his voice. That was Willie's vehicle that took him everywhere, from churches to Jewish Community Centers, from Sam Phillips‚ Studio to Rick Hall's Fame Studio, and from Memphis to Minneapolis and back to Memphis.
Willie spoke of travelling in a Cadillac in the mid-to-late 1950's with a Gospel group called the Redemption Harmonizers. (One incarnation of the Harmonizers included, Roosevelt Jamison, the author of the Soul standard "That's How Strong My Love Is" and also a song Willie recorded, "There Goes My Used To Be," which is now available on The Goldwax Story Volume 1. Kent 203) An early photo of Willie with the group shows him then as a 15 year-old in the matching suit flair of Gospel performers with a pencil-drawn moustache. The fake moustache was the only dishonesty I could find about the man and it's that honesty that distinguishes Willie's brand of Soul.
Even when I asked him his age, he clarified the slightest discrepancy. He said he was born in Hernando, Mississippi in 1941, even though he wasn't really from there. He arrived while his mother was visiting her mother on December 21st. What he later found out when relocating to Minnesota and gathering his birth records, the state had his birth date listed as December 23rd, which was probably the date it was filed. Willie said, "It's the 21st though. I always believe my mother."
Willie relocated from Memphis to Minneapolis in 1960. The Redemption Harmonizers‚ tour had brought him this far North a couple of times and he told his band mates that upon their next visit to Minneapolis, he was going to stay there. A fellow Harmonizer who had family in Minneapolis defected with Willie at that time and since then Willie Walker has lived in Minnesota. His Minnesota connection was a member of another Gospel group, the Royal Jubileers and Willie found a home amongst them...
. . . Most recently, Willie has collaborated with the legendary Twin Cities-based soul/blues/R & B powerhouse The Butanes. Together, they recorded three highly acclaimed modern soul records and toured the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan. He also fronts his own R & B unit, Willie Walker and We “R” with whom he has a monthly residency at the Minnesota Music Café in St. Paul. Willie has also partnered up with Minnesota’s own Paul Metsa, renowned singer, songwriter, author and teller of tales. It’s just Paul’s guitar work and Willie’s voice interpreting everything from “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “My Girl” to “What A Wonderful World” and “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues.”
Walker's music comes from a different time, a different place and a different point of view. He's one of the few vocalists from the era that is still standing and that can still sing. And the fact that we're north of Chicago, there aren't many people in this town that has a past like Walker. Willie, it's good to have you in town.
Portions excerpted from Mike Elias' article in The Chord......
Abbreviated bio from http://www.weewilliewalker.com/about/