Junior Walker and the All-Stars

important work in color

1965: Shotgun. 1966: Soul Session * Road Runner. 1967: Live! 1969: Home Cookin’ * Greatest Hits * Gotta Hold On to This Feeling. 1970: Live * A Gassss. 1971: Rainbow Funk * Moody Junior. 1973: Peace and Understanding is So Hard to Find. 1974: Anthology. 1976: Hot Shot * Communiqué * Sax Appeal * Whopper Bopper Show Stopper. 1978: Smooth. 1981: Superstar Series, Vol. 5. 1986: Compact Command Performances. 1991: Nothing But Soul: The Singles Collection – 1962 – 1983.

Junior Walker and the All-Stars had a bar band ambiance characterized by saxophone-driven, dance-step instrumentals and inelegantly sung cover tunes. Motown’s bigger stars overshadowed the band, but, rather quietly, Walker became the premier soloist Motown produced. At best, his early string of records – from Shotgun to Home Cookin’ – have a sense of recklessness and control almost worthy of Stax-Volt recordings. Unfortunately, Walker kept making money and Motown showed its appreciation by giving him songs his voice wasn’t always up to doing: then they swathed him in strings and drowned him in girl vocals. This pretty much diluted the rough power and dexterous chops evident in his earliest playing; unencouraged was the idea of Jr. Walker as a pure musician. The pursuit of a goal ultimately more important than the record charts, never occurred to the money-counters. Cub Koda, in the indispensible All Music Guide to Rock, cites Walker’s influence on the Tom Scott/Dave Sanborn crowd, which may be a put-down, and he half-heartedly recommends Nothing But Soul: The Singles – 1962 – 1983. But the singles collection represents yet another screwing-over of Junior Walker by Motown. There should be a great collection, but this one isn’t it.

Shotgun is a pretty nice example of Walker’s on-the-fringe importance. Spencer Davis and Stevie Winwood made a little money copying the style. Road Runner is okay. So is Smooth. But one at a time.

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