2nd Cool Blues Night
Toby Walker Fascinates

Article by Jürgen Wagner.

From the New York Blues Hall Of Fame directly to Ockstadt: Toby Walker plays Delta Blues and tells storys from odd characters. He was joined onstage by promoter Andi Saitenhieb.
"wonderful, exceptional, cool blues evening"
"Ockstadt, this Bentonia of the Wetterau" (Wetterau is the name for Friedberg and it's surrounding villages)
"133 blues fans experienced an evening that will stay in their memories for a long time"
"exceptional guitarist, a first class fingerpicker and also a showman, an entertainer and storyteller that thrills his audience from the very first second"
"what Walker does is highest guitar art"
"you have to look twice to believe there is really only one guitarist on the stage"
"a really cool Blues-evening"

Toby Walker joined onstage my friend Andi Saitenhieb.

Friedberg-Ockstadt. One of his travels to the south of the USA led New York Blues guitarist Toby Walker into the 500-soul-village Bentonia in Yazoo County in Mississippi. You have to look that up in Google maps.
Heading Northwest from Jackson along highway 49 there is nothing but woods until you reach Bentonia. A sleepy village and a little capital of the Blues. For here lived the blues master Jack Owens, who founded his own country-blues - school and invented the Bentonia style. From him Walker wanted to learn a few tricks, but that was a difficult task. First the elderly Owens mumbled an incomprehensible gibberish into the phone receiver, when Walker asked him for directions to his house in the mountains, and when Walker then, after a Mississippi Delta odyssey that could come from a film by the Coen Brothers stood before the old man, he said he could no longer show him anything on the guitar, because of the " cramps in his fingers". The fact that the audience laughed loudly at this point of the story, for the umpteenth time in this wonderful, unique, cool blues evening, which was almost a comedy blues evening, was down to the fact that Walker with a mischievous smile, his left hand like claws in the air stretched, revealed that Jack Owens told him 100 dollars and a bottle of whiskey could cure the cramps. Lo and behold : A sip from the bottle and the fingers flitted over the guitar neck as ever.

Toby Walker is the man of the hour in the acoustic blues. In February he graced the cover of "Blues Blast magazine," a few days ago he was inducted into the "New York Blues Hall Of Fame", and in 2002 he won the prestigious "International Blues Challenge" in the most difficult category solo artist. Right now he was in England on tour. When the Ockstädter guitar teacher Andi Saitenhieb, organizer of the "Cool Blues Night", on Saturday evening revealed in the occupied to the last seat Jugendheim, Walker plays his only concert in Germany this year just here in Ockstadt, this Bentonia the Wetterau, he was not just a little, but at least as proud as Walker, when he was able to learn from miraculously cured Jack Owens the Blues patterns of the South.
The "Cool Blues Night" is already established with this second edition. For the concert with the exceptional guitarist Steve James end of September last year, the hall was not completely full, this time additional chairs had to be arranged. About 120 Blues fans were there and experienced an evening that is likely to remain in their memories for a long time. Toby Walker is an exceptional guitarist also, a first-class finger picker, and he is a showman too, an entertainer and storyteller who carries his audience along from the very first second. Right from the first few bars, a massive stomping Walking Blues, the feet of the audience also stomp in time, the wheels and side rods of the steam engine start to move, the journey into the blues Delta begins, a chord and picking pattern are enough, add a fat warm sound, and then everything suddenly breaks off and Toby Walker says it's only was the sound check.

What Walker subsequently showed (and repeatedly commented and framed with crazy stories), was highest guitar art. A precisely played swing -beat, which reminds of Chet Atkins and Django Reinhardt, a funky Blues to sing along ("Hey, hey " and " Wuhu " echoes through the room), a funny ragtime, with which Toby made fun of the internet preacher, stunts with the bottleneck, delicate harmonics, swampy bass lines, fat blues rhythms and, as I said, a lot of wit and charm shaped this show. Beguiling beautiful was Walker's instrumental version of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood " after which he also told a funny anecdote, and during the classic "Sittin on top of the world" one had to look twice to believe that there is really only one guitarist on stage.

In the end there were actually two guitarists, because Andi ("That's like Christiano Ronaldo asking me to play soccer with him") was asked to accompany Toby Walker at the "Bootlegger's Blues" from the Mississippi Sheiks, contributed a groovy solo, before Walker then played three encores. Saitenhieb himself had opened the evening with four pieces, including a very skilful Germanized version of Big Bill Broonzy song "Hey hey" . Hey , hey, a really cool blues evening.
Jürgen Wagner

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