The Long Island Press

Brentwood’s Blues Beacon
The Long Road Of Little Toby Walker
By Dave Gil De Rubio

In this day and age of iPods, file sharing and other accouterments of the Internet, most people are content to learn and ingest any musical knowledge from the comfort and solitude of their cubicles and workstations. Mark 47 year old bluesman Little Toby Walker as a man with one foot in the future and one in the past. Although he’s hardly a Luddite (his website, www.littletobywalker.com, is chock full of links and music samples), this Brentwood native’s apprenticeship came as a result of criss-crossing the country and sitting at the feet of obscure blues masters like Othar Turner, Etta Baker and Booba Barnes, in addition to hours of woodshedding.

A guitarist who specializes in acoustic country-blues not unlike Lightnin’ Hopkins or Bukka White, Walker Got his start playing in the early ‘70’s as a teenager weaned on B.B. King, and was eventually introduced to the electrified Chicago Blues that had also been a muse to British greats like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. “This guy named Robert lived up the block from me and called out to ask me what I played when he saw me walking down the street with my guitar case,” says Walker, who lives in Wantagh. “When I said the blues, he asked me what I listened to and then he had me, because B.B. King was all I really knew. We got to talking and he invited me to check out these hundreds of blues albums he had in his basement. He had all these Chicago players like Buddy Guy, Magic Sam and Otis Rush. Needless to say, I spent the whole summer in his basement listening to this stuff.”

Bitten by the music bug, Walker coasted through high school, admitting that teachers ?didn’t know what to do with me.? After graduating with a couple of music theory classes under his belt, the newly-minted grad immediately sated his thirst for wanderlust by grabbing his guitar and a buddy to embark on a three month hitchhiking trip across the country. What started out as a whim inspired by the travels of people like Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac, found Little Toby Walker hitting the road and playing on the spot gigs and street corners all the way to California. On future adventures, Walker would stop off in tiny burgs in the Deep South, where he’d look up and interview musicians he’d heard of during hours of self-motivated research. For as many of these encounters that are archived on his website, Walker has plenty of other anecdotes featuring famous names like Muddy Waters and J.J. Cale along with stories featuring guns getting pulled, countless busking tales and plenty of colorful characters. ?All the people that I interviewed, studied with and video taped were open and very generous in showing me what they could,? recalls Walker.

With all the traveling he’s done, this winner of the 2002 Memphis International Blues Challenge Award has already gotten himself a following across the pond. “My first time over in England earlier this year was really, really successful.” the guitarist proudly recalls. “I’m going back over next year for two extended tours, at which point I’m going to be cutting a live CD for about 60 folks in a studio.” For as much time as he spends on the road, Walker also finds time to teach by way of tablature posted on his website, a guitar camp at Columbia University hosted by fellow guitarist Woody Mann or gong straight to young people in a more traditional atmosphere. “I’m looking to get into the schools because they end up being wonderful venues,” says Walker. “So then I can do what I do in the libraries, which is to talk about the history of the blues and get the kids into it.”