Bobby Walker – Can’t Stop Loving You
Bobby Walker – Good Ole Mountain Dew
Bobby Walker – Devil Woman
Bobby Walker – Peace Of Mind And Happiness
{Update 3-13-26 ~ Amongst my many delinquent posts over the years, this one is the most perplexing, but finally, almost four years after the fact, are all the words I wanted to say about this album…Peace & Bright Moments!}
It’s been rare over the years that I hear about a record from an article or online post, that turns out to actually be even better than I thought it would be, but that is definitely the case with this private press bit of Country Funk from Mr. Bobby Walker.
I believe, (I say “believe,” because it’s been a very long minute and my memory may be shaky on this) this album first came up on my radar back in 2012, when I was looking online for more information about the band Coke and the Miami based Sound Triangle label that also features Pearly Queen’s “Quit Jivin’,” a long time favorite of mine and also one of a handful of tunes I associate with Matthew Africa just because of how hyped he get whenever it was played out back in the day, when he was with us and I still lived in the Bay.
That search for more info eventually led me to an article originally published in the Miami New Times even further back, 1991 to be exact, by John C. Stacey, titled, “Miami Sound Before The Machines,” which highlights a number of largely overlooked musicians who cut records in South Florida in the 1960s-1980s. While there were a couple of albums mentioned I knew (Helene Smith’s Sings Sweet Soul and The Judge’s Nephews), and whole bunch I’d never heard of before (now that I’m re-reading the article, I probably should try to track down Tubby Boots Goes Topless just to see & hear what that is like), but the write-up from Stacey for Walker’s only album just hit all the right spots in that moment for me, especially the following excerpts:
“To look at this photo of Bobby Walker is to absorb a double shot of the angst of a Fort Lauderdale saloon singer far ahead of his time. This dude was a stone original..Bobby flows it free and easy and drives it through with a full band. And it is indeed funky. Hip hoppers could sample the dope beat underlying Walker’s version of “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” The standout cut is the original “Peace of Mind and Happiness,” a Zen-cowboy rap Bobby sings like Roger Miller on crank. Out there — as in all the way.”
I’ll forgive the use of “Hip-Hoppers,” because it was 1991, but everything else was more than enough to have me put the album on my radar and keep me focused on finding a copy for roughly a decade until one finally did pop up and eventually made it’s way into my collection. Stacey was indeed spot on with his description of Bobby Walker’s vibe.
When I put the needle down on the first track, “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” I immediately heard what Stacey meant about “hip-hoppers” finding sample material on this album. I expected Country Funk, but this was just straight, hard jazz funk, with Walker on the Hammond B-3 taking us to church. The funk tunes on this record, such as “Good Ole Mountain Dew,” and “Devil Woman,” are so funky, it’s hard to even classify them as “Country Funk.” It’s more like Walker was a capable Jazz Funk artist, who also happened to sing Country tunes. And just as Stacey described, “Peace of Mind and Happiness” does have a kind of Zen quality to it, though I wouldn’t say Walker sounds like Roger Miller on crank, (but now that I think of it, I’m not sure I’ve heard what Roger Miller on crank would sound like or if Miller ever actually did crank, or any drug beyond alcohol), but that song, and pretty much every other one on the album was the kind of quality you hope to find on private press records. It still kind of blows my mind that I discovered this album 21 years after the original article that mentioned it. I can only dream about the records I would have been able to track down if I had read it in the 1990s, a dream that I often have these days, whenever I see how much price inflation has exploded with records that I either used to own, or passed by because they were not my cup of tea then. But at least, I no longer have to dream about what this album sounds like, and now neither do you!
Happy hunting,
Michael