Austin “Walkin' Cane" – Muscle Shoals

22-03-2023

Damn Fine Blues ! Original & classic delta blues featuring slide guitar and soulful vocals. A blues gumbo repertoire that can conjure up the ghosts of highway 61 & the delta blues experience. Austin Walkin' Cane is a blues singer, songwriter and slide guitarist that performs acoustic solo, duo & electric band sets. Austin Walkin' Cane has toured Australia, Nepal, Colombia, France, Germany, England, Wales, and the US, from New Orleans, Louisiana to Juneau, Alaska with only a guitar & suitcase in hand. Austin walked for ten years with a cane due to an arterial venous malformation at birth. While performing on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a homeless man called out "Hey Walkin' Cane got some spare change for a brother ?!" Austin took the jibe as his nickname. In 1996, after years of battling the inevitable, his left leg was amputated below the knee. A year after the surgery, he returned to the music scene stronger & without need of a cane. AWC's 2008 cd, "Murder of a Blues Singer", was inspired by an after hour diner conversation with blues legend Robert Jr. Lockwood. "The stories were flowing like the grease off our plates", subsequently the album is saturated in classic delta blues, as were the tales of Lockwood\'s stepfather, Robert Johnson. Mr. Lockwood had agreed to perform on the record, but fate had changed that path. The Walkin' Cane Band captured the perfect "live in the studio" feeling that Austin & co-writer Chris Allen had envisioned for these songs. The band is a well oiled machine. Special guests on Murder of a Blues Singer include Colin Dussault, Eroc Sosinski and one of Cleveland's finest gospel groups, the Prayer Warriors. In 2011, an acoustic cd, "A World Of Blues", was released. The Allen / Charanghat original songs were recorded live at the Brothers Lounge as a testament to Walkin' Cane living on the road. The album uses excerpts of Austin's world travels in addition to the show recorded in the heart of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame city. During the summer of 2014, "One Heart Walkin'" was recorded in two days at the historic G.A.R. Hall in Peninsula, OH. Built in 1850, the former schoolhouse & Civil War Veteran's hangout, set the perfect mood for this album. Listening to Cane's most recent album is like being a passenger on the old Illinois Central Railroad. These "Damn Fine Blues", take the listener from the south side of Chicago, through the deep south of the Mississippi Delta. You'll stop in Memphis, Clarksdale & Bentonia, and ride to the end of the line of New Orleans, Louisiana. All of the songs on "One Heart Walkin'" were co-written with songwriter and grade school friend, Chris Allen. The album of Allen/Charanghat originals came to life with the help of legendary producer & bassist Don Dixon, harmonica extraordinaire Dave Morrison, Allen on acoustic guitar, Freddie Perez-Stable on drums & members of the Revolution Brass Band, bringing in the sound of New Orleans. Austin Walkin' Cane has traveled the world singing the blues with only a guitar & suitcase in hand. The singer/slide guitarist says "B.B. King Live at the Regal was the album that led me to the blues at fourteen years old. B.B.'s voice & guitar blew my mind ! Then I started digging deeper & found Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Robert Jr Lockwood. A few months later, Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues Singers Vol. I & II fueled my obsession with slide guitar."Austin and Chris Allen, another Cleveland based singer-songwriter, began writing songs together as teenagers. That songwriting partnership has reaped many musical dividends, and the two team up once again for Cane's eighth blues album, Austin Walkin' Cane Muscle Shoals. The album was inspired by the legendary FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Legends such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett & Otis Redding recorded hits in Studio A. The Allman Brothers had their first jam in Studio B. Cane says, "I was leaving to perform at a Memphis house party when a friend mentioned that Muscle Shoals was only three hours away. I immediately booked a session at FAME." Fifteen songs of Austin with his National Resonator Guitar were recorded that afternoon. The slide guitar heavy album was rounded out with the talents of legendary producer Don Dixon at SPA Studio. Armed with only his voice and (slide) guitar, Austin Walkin' Cane has been touring the world for many years. With "Muscle Shoals" the man has arrived at his eighth studio album. Austin Walkin' Cane was bitten by the blues bug after he, as a fourteen-year-old boy, B.B. King's "Live At The Regal". Soon followed Howlin 'Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and especially Robert Johnson. The latter sparked the love for the slide guitar. One day when he heard through a friend that the Muscle Shoals studios were only a three-hour drive from Memphis, his decision was made. Make recordings in this famous studio and pay tribute to soul toppers such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Yet Austin Walkin 'Cane also opts for his trademark : quiet blues songs with a lot of attention to slide and his slightly raw voice. He recorded fifteen tracks like this and without using extra overdubs you will hear ten of those fifteen tracks here. Just like he recorded them live in the studio. So don't expect screeching guitars or a pack of blast beats flying around your ears, but very honest music that is simply performed with voice and guitar with respect for the roots of blues, pop, rock and metal music. Yet these recordings sound free of any noise, something you have to take into account if you go back to old blues recordings from the heyday of country blues. Fans of the subgenre can blindly add this disc to the collection. Austin Walkin' Cane arrives bearing not only a cool blues calling card but a commanding voice and fiery Delta chops. If you like Muddy Waters, go see Austin Walkin Cane.

1. Waiting For A Little Sunshine 3:51

2. Living, Working, Dying 4:34

3. Midnight Creep 2:39

4. Same Bad Habbits 3:08

5. One Heart Walkin' 5:16

6. Dark Was The Night, 3:00

Cold Was The Ground 3:57

7. (In The Evening) When The Sun Goes Down 3:37

8. Highway 61 4:42

9. Sweet Mama Brown 4:27

10. Sun Go Down 4:41

Austin Walkin' Cane - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar