PHILLIP WALKER "GOING BACK HOME" Source: Blues Revue Magazine Date: 05/2007 Writer: Tom Clarke

On the cover of Going Back Home, 70-year-old Phillip Walker stands in a rail yard, his expression deadly serious, a jacket slung over one shoulder and a lone piece of luggage in his hand. The intended message is clear: Walker doesn¹t need much more than the contents of that guitar case, for everywhere he travels, the instrument provides his bread and butter.

Born into a large sharecropping family near Lake Charles, Louisiana, Walker grew up in nearby Port Arthur, Texas. Enthralled by T-Bone Walker, the young blues fan picked up the guitar and by his teens had scored his first gig backing Memphis pianist Rosco Gordon. He ran with Long John Hunter and Lonesome Sundown, spent two years backing zydeco patriarch Clifton Chenier, and supported the likes of Little Richard and Etta James before striking out on his own, eventually relocating to California in 1959.

For Walker, going back home means recording the kind of steamy Gulf Coast blues that shaped his early education. Like his friend Hunter¹s albums from the 1990s, Going Back Home pumps Louisiana swamp juice into Texas blues, all of it featuring stylish guitar. Ray Charles’ “Blackjack” and Champion Jack Dupree¹s “Bad Blood” feature some of Walker¹s most inspired soloing; the former is a biting blues number, while the latter floats on a Charles Brown-like jazz groove and features an impassioned vocal turn by Walker and spectacular piano by Rob Rio. “If You See My Baby” has a rubbery midtempo groove, while “Lying Woman” is packed with horn-blasted funk. “Honey Stew” and “Lay You Down” are fervent rockers penned by producer Randy Chortkoff.

Walker doesn’t record frequently, but when he does, he plays from the heart and gut. Chortkoff has rallied some of the finest players in the business, including veterans of the legendary Hollywood Fats Band, to help Walker make his best record to date.