Joshua Ray Walker

One Liner: "baby-faced, 6XL guitar hero with a Dwight Yoakum voice."

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is country and Americana.

Home: Dallas

Poster Position: 23
Weekend Two Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  I read a piece about Walker a few years ago in Rolling Stone, and he's an intriguing dude.  They called him a "baby-faced, 6XL guitar hero with a Dwight Yoakum voice."

He's a great songwriter guy, and his voice is pretty good too. Dallas born and bred. Many times when you lead with "songwriter" then they've got the Dylan/Robert Earl Keen type voice that isn't going to win any awards, but the high and lonesome note this guy hits a few minutes into "Voices" is clean and lovely.  This is also that type of country where you get rockin' guitars to go with the good stories - a guy who is gonna start using drugs again, a guy who is going to ride the buckin' bronco at a bar, a gal showing boats to rednecks at a boat show, or a guy who kills himself by drinking a bottle and putting his truck in a lake.  

His first album was 2019's Wish You Were Here, and it is 10 songs of great story-telling and a good showcase for his voice.  It also just feels so authentic, like he's really seen these things or knows these people who he is singing about.  Nothing in here feels like he made it up to sell records, more like he just poured it out of himself to make sure that none of these stories were lost to time.  Like, here is a story he told about his grandfather that has great detail: ""In the third grade, (my grandfather) dropped out of school to make money for his family in Tennessee's Cumberland Gap. Then, he lied about his age and joined the Navy at 16, and was stationed in Japan for four years. After that, he returned and moved to New York City and became a Broadway choreographer, competitive ballroom dancer and dance instructor at a location of the Arthur Murray School of Dance. Once the dance craze died, he moved around doing blue-collar labor and settled in Texas, living in the other half of a duplex beside my parents and me.  While he was there, he was a maintenance man and home builder, who sold and pawned reclaimed electronics and hardware he'd pick up from dumpster diving."  WTF, man.  How cool is that?  The top track from this album is a quiet little tale of desperation, called "Lot Lizard," with 996k streams and a little slice of that high and lonesome sound.

Damn those lyrics are depressing as hell.  Like a good Jason Isbell soul-crusher right there.

I read another thing about him in Texas Monthly a few months back, which piqued my interest enough to stick his 2020 album, Glad You Made It, in the queue.  He's huge - like his photo on the cover of this album is fascinating just because of how large of a man he is, while his voice just sounds like it could be any skinny hipster who used to front BR-549.  And from what I recall in that profile, he really did live the rough-and-tumble, poor lifestyle that he sings about in these songs.  The lyrics in "Boat Show Girl" are wonderful.  But "Voices" gets the top streaming at 1.4 million.

I dig that video too - basic concept but it is still fun to see those people looking at you and clicking that million-year-old remote.  The drunk lady is going to be in my nightmares though.  Pretty great.  I like the whole album.  

After that, he popped out on more album, 2021's See You Next Time.  I like the theme of the album names.  I hope the next one is Sorry I Missed You or Quit Fucking Following Me.  "Three Strikes" is super fun - now I see the Dwight comparison.  "Sexy After Dark," with 576k streams, is the top track right now.

Almost has a Nathaniel Rateliff vibe with those horns and groove.  I'm afraid to google the lyrics on my work computer, but it sure seems like a no shit message - isn't that when most people feel sexy?

Damn.  Sucks that he is Weekend Two, Sunday only.  Won't get the chance to see him, most likely.  I should hunt down a different show and see him, I think it would be worth it.