POP MUSIC REVIEW : Walker: Blues Potency, but No Star Power

Phillip Walker rates as a delicacy among blues connoisseurs, but less rabid blues fans are likely to draw a blank if he’s mentioned.

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The veteran guitarist, who got his start in 1953 backing Louisiana zydeco king Clifton Chenier, began recording on his own in 1959. He has reached modern-blues connoisseurs with releases for such highly regarded small labels as HighTone and Black Top, but he doesn’t command the wider audience of listeners who have a taste for traditional blues but who like to satisfy it with big-name attractions.

Walker showed why he is a connoisseur’s delight Friday night at the Hyatt Regency. But three sets spanning nearly three hours also revealed a lack of star power that probably disqualifies him from becoming a mass attraction.

From Robert Johnson on, blues stardom has required a bit of an actor’s knack--the ability to play up the tension, pathos and comedy embedded in the core human relationships that are the bedrock of the blues. At 58, Walker comes off as an admirable stylist but not much of a dramatist or showman.

Decked out dapperly in suit, fedora and striped tie, the tall, solidly built, L.A.-based musician was amiable but restrained, a steady, sturdy sort who appeared more like a family man ready to go to an after-church brunch than a rabble-rouser intent on firing up a bunch of nightlife-seeking juke-joint reprobates.

His casually brilliant command of his red Gibson ES-330 guitar made it seem like a natural appendage that he indeed might take along to church or brunch. Using a thumb-and-forefinger picking technique, he generated a clear, firm, full-bodied tone that was purely satisfying--all the more so because every note belonged.

Amid this display of economy, he kept up interest with well-articulated flurries and rasping vibrato accents--tasty decorations that didn’t break his fundamental rule forbidding anything superfluous.

The evening’s highlight was the opening 50-minute set, a showcase in which Walker’s four-man band matched his own tasteful precision. The traditional opening instrumental salvo was no mere warmup but an energized jump-start as Walker moved from a strolling shuffle to a macho, low-down groove.

Jerry “Pony” Abrams was especially impressive as he played left-handed on an upside-down Fender bass, laying down lines full of heft and punch yet dexterous enough to include decorative twists.

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Drummer Johnny Tucker was a vigorous heavy-hitter and a joyful performer--too bad his brilliant smile and head-waggling body English were hidden in the shadows at the back of the tall stage in the hotel’s restaurant. Sax players Eddie Lee and James Thomas rounded out the band. Lee, the main solo foil to Walker, took some jazz-influenced departures from the melody line.

Sounding a bit like an aged and mellowed cousin to Robert Cray, Walker sang in a high, reedy voice with cottony textures balancing his shouts. He presented a varied mix of material that included a playful take on the standard “Got My Mojo Working,” played at a clipped, bouncy gait that would have pleased a 1920s flapper.

“Brother, Go Ahead and Take Her,” a slow-blues song of romantic recriminations, was leavened with humor. “Hello, My Darling,” Walker’s debut single from ’59 (now updated on his current album, “Working Girl Blues”), skipped along on the infectious Louisiana rhythms he played in his early days with Chenier.

Returning to the bandstand after a break, Walker lightly suggested that the audience of about 120 might want to contribute some dance-floor “adrenaline” of its own, rather than “sitting out there, checking me out.” The dancers complied, but the rest of the evening wasn’t as sharp or distinctive as the more concert-like opening.

Walker switched to a Fender Telecaster for the second half of the night, and its steely, stinging tone was not as matched to his personal style as the rounder-toned Gibson. The two sax players lost their assurance, often sounding wheezy and tentative during sets two and three.

The long evening also revealed a sameness of emotional tone in Walker’s material: He invariably played the part of the man-done-wrong, a more bemused than devastated fellow who lays the blame for romantic woes on inconstant and unreliable women. Self-directed songs of confession and soul-searching would have helped--not just to gender-balance the scales of blame, but to raise the emotional stakes of the performance.

Walker and band rallied at the end with a meaty slow blues and a loose, energetic “Dust My Broom” in which the Telecaster’s sassy bite was used to playful advantage. By then, a private party in an adjoining hotel lounge had broken up and a few stragglers reinforced the thinned-out blues-show crowd. To them, Walker obviously was an unknown, but his closing peak pulled them onto the dance floor and into the blues spirit that he represents with notable skill and quiet aplomb.

Those qualities may not draw in the masses of blues lovers. But if the masses also were to meet Walker in a chance encounter--maybe on a festival bill where he could replicate that strong opening set--they would come away impressed.