DISCOGRAPHY 1969-1995 (10CD)
BIOGRAPHY
Although he was a Chicago blues stalwart through three decades, the
keyboard player and singer Johnny (Big Moose) Walker, who died late
November 1999 of a stroke aged 72, preferred to reminisce about his
youthful experiences in the south playing with Elmore James, Sonny Boy
Williamson and Earl Hooker.Mr. Walker was born, of partly native-American stock, in Stoneville, near Greenville, MS, and as a boy learned to play the organ in the local church, like his father before him.
In his twenties he played piano in bands led by the drummer Cleanhead Love and the Memphis-based bass player Tuff Green, then toured with Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson before serving in the U.S. Army in Korea 1953-55. He later worked on the west coast with Lowell Fulson, in Greenville with Ike Turner and in Chicago with Earl Hooker, Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), Johnny Littlejohn (John Funchess) and many others.
Meanwhile he recorded several more or less obscure singles under variants
of his name such as Moose John or Big Moose. "I got the name because of
the length of my hair," he explained. "People said I looked like a
moose."
In 1960s Chicago he spent time with fellow pianists Sunnyland Slim and
Johnny Jones and toured with Otis Rush and Muddy Waters playing bass - a
skill he had picked up while with Ike Turner and Howlin' Wolf.
He then rejoined Earl Hooker, playing on his 1969 Bluesway album Don't
have to Worry. Bluesway producer Ed Michel also featured him on his own
album, Rambling Woman and hired him for the singer Andrew "Big Voice"
Odom's Farther on Down the Road as well as a joint effort by John Lee
Hooker and Earl Hooker If You Miss 'Im, I Got 'Im. Recalling the session
with Earl and John Lee Hooker Mr. Michel commented "Walker was to that
band what Otis Spann was to Muddy Waters."... (Wikipedia)