Album Notes

John Walker is a transplanted Okie who now calls Nebraska home. His musical roots go back to Bob and Johnny Lee Wills, Woody Guthrie, Hudie Ledbetter, Bukka White, Brownie McGee, and numerous small-town Methodist churches where he learned songs like "What a Friend," "Oh Happy Day," and "Just a Closer Walk With Thee."

His own songs reflect that upbringing in their laid-back accessibility and Southern rural themes. they combine foot-stomping rhythms with easy-listening melodies and expressive lyrics, all to the accomplished accompaniment of finger-picking in the Piedmont style. He plays a Martin, D-16M, and a Dobro all metal resonater, both about 20 years old. He has played his songs in bars and churches and festival and living rooms and hay fields across the country for over 30 years. He is a long-time traveler with the Nebraska Arts Council's Touring Artists Program and has been a featured artist on numerous readio and television shows, including Nebraska Educational Television's "Plowing Up a Storm," Tom May's "River City Folk," and, most recently, NETV's series, "Next Exit." He was invited to the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in 1997 as Nebraska's representative to the Center's series of Statehood Day Concerts. He was nominated in four categories of Lincoln's KZUM-FM Listeners' Choice Awards, 2000, and won the award for Blues Performer of the Year for both 2000 and 2001.

You can read about John Walker's Tour Schedule and get a complete list of titles from Prairie Dog Music at www.prairiedogmusic.com. While there, you will find that among Doctor Walker's favorite things are Melinda's XXX hot sauce, dark french roast coffee, Johnnie Walker Red, big black stinky cigars, and basketball. Right now, Doctor Walker is nursing a torn hamstring and a gimpy knee. But soon he will be back with his buddies at church, literally and figuratively. Since basketball is a holy thing, any pick-up game is a religious occasion. Doctor Walker and his buddies regularly convene on these occasions at the small gym in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church, 17th and G, Lincoln. When we play hoops, we go to church in a church. How pleasing.