Bop-A-While (feat. Joe Louis Walker)

#130 in The Need To Know Badass Blues Instrumentals Series, Bop-A-While, features San Francisco Blues legend, Joe Louis Walker. This track was cut several years ago and we were absolutely stoked to get Joe, as he is not only a true badass, but he is part of the history of Electric Blues and we felt that he brought some serious "cred" to our humble little project. By the time Joe was twenty, he had already played with John Lee Hooker, Buddy Miles, Otis Rush, Thelonious Monk, The Soul Stirrers, Willie Dixon, Charlie Musselwhite, Steve Miller, John Mayall, Earl Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix! Joe was roommates with Mike Bloomfield until Mike's tragic and untimely death. Mike's passing caused Joe to reevaluate everything and he left the Blues world to attend San Francisco State University achieving degrees in both Music and English. But the call of the Blues was too strong and by the mid '80's Joe had begun what is now an almost forty year, twenty five album solo career, including collaborations with BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, James Cotton, Branford Marsalis, Scotty Moore, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Steve Cropper, Tower of Power, and Ike Turner. Joe has won multiple Grammys, Blues Music Awards and is a Blues Hall of Fame inductee. All of these tracks are my "babies" and I know you're not supposed to have favorites but...this is definitely one of my favorites. (shhhhh, don't tell the others) Enjoy!

The backing band on this track is Alvino Bennett (Dave Mason, Stevie Wonder) on drums and myself on bass and rhythm guitar. The basics were recorded at Skunkworks in Capitola CA and Joe's tracks were recorded by Scott Petito at NRS Recording in upstate New York. Mixing and mastering duties were performed by the Supreme Ruler of Greaseland, Christoffer "Kid" Andersen.