Good Times Magazine

Little Toby Walker & Friends, Cathy Kreger, Big Mike Meyer & The Blue Streak, Rob Wescott, Sweet Potato Pie, Home Grown String Band
Paula Jeans
East Setauket

The mud of the Mississippi Delta and the tenements of urban Chicago are a thousand miles south and west of our tiny Island of Long, but the Blues that are generated from our home folk are as real as from other parts of America. The Long Island Blues Society sponsored this event, whose purpose it was to raise funds to send one of our finest to represent Long Island at the Memphis Blues Festival. One of our best is Mr. Toby Walker. Toby is a personable character who is able to play his audience as well as he plays his guitar. His living room is the stage that he happens to be playing that particular night. He is as real as it gets and a fan seated close by said she felt as if Toby was playing just for her. That’s pretty neat in my book.

Toby opened with the sexually covert “Can’t Tame Wild Women (But I can make the tame ones wild)”. Maybe not so covert after all, eh? “It’s Tough” referenced the hard life and pitfalls of being a struggling musician and the sacrifices that need to be made for love of craft. Toby then comedically discussed his disbelief with his current situation, the fact that The Long Island Blues Society was giving him a first class airline ticket to Memphis, a hotel room for his length of stay, a rental car, and a pile of cash.

Walker’s originals ooze with appetites of the flesh. The title “The Baseball Blues” seems innocent enough right? Well his clever double entendres are wonderful. “I’ll hit it right with my Louisville slugger, You’ll hear it sing cause I’m the home run king.” And “she needs to lay her record down so I can put my needle in your groove” he sings in “The Phonograph Blues.” “I Can’t Remember,” about selective memory was done with a tinge of Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys while “Sleeping Alone” spoke about the pains of lost love. It was done with so much emotion you had to bet that Toby was talking from personal experience. Toby, my man...good luck. Knock’ em dead in the South. Show them what New York is all about.

Opening for Toby was Cathy (all killer, no filler) Kreger. Her rendition of Taj Mahal’s “She Caught The Cady,” about trouble in paradise, was electrifying as was B.B. King’s “Key To The Kingdom.” The traditional “Walkin’ The Dog” was well received, as was The Buffalo Springfield classic “For What It’s Worth.” “Before You Accuse Me,” showed how we need to be aware of our own shortcomings and not blame others for our misgivings, and Mose Allison’s “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy” was delivered with the gut-wrenching honesty of a priest at Easter Mass.
The only drawbacks to her set was that it was too short and she didn’t play enough original material. Preceeding Cathy was “Big Mike & The Blue Streak.” Who are these guys, you ask? Well they’re guitarist “Big Mike” Meyer and harp player Rob “Blue Streak” Bellassai, my friends, and are fellow blues enthusiasts. Billy C. Wertz’s “Just Can’t Seem to Lose The Blues” was kickin. Audience participation of Hank Williams “Mind Your Own Business” caught the entire B-level club singing loud as it spotlighted the evils of gossip and the pain it can cause. Local bluesman, Sam Taylor was present to catch Big Mike’s interpretation of Sam’s “Blues Is Gonna Get You.” Billy Wertz was also represented this afternoon with the sarcastic truth of getting on in years, with “Things I Do All Night Takes Me All Night To Do.”

- Blue Lou Margiore