Audio By Carbonatix
On Bobby Walker’s tenth album, 2008’s Git It, the whiskey-rasped singer proved that he definitely still had it after four decades of being in the biz. On his new EP, Way Back When, Walker digs into the past and lays down five cuts he grew up with. He and his band do justice to most of the tracks, especially the tight and snappy “Little Bit O’ Soul” and Robert Parker’s R&B hit “Barefootin’,” with Walker also playing drums on both songs. The group slows it down a bit on “A Rainy Night in Georgia,” popularized by Brook Benton in 1970, and on Harold Dorman’s “Mountain of Love.” While most of the cuts were written in the ’60s, Walker goes even further back for “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” with Billy Wilson laying down the zydeco accordion. Overall, Way Back When succeeds in breathing new life into some old tunes.
