Star Tribune photo by Tom Wallace
It didn’t matter if it was only five people in a northeast Minneapolis dive bar paying attention or a large appreciative festival crowd in Europe. Wee Willie Walker, the Twin Cities finest soul singer, sang every performance like it might be his last.
Whether singing a chestnut by Johnnie Taylor or a bluesy original, Walker offered a delectable Southern soul combination of sweetness and sadness.
The natty 5 foot 5 soul man’s voice, part velvet, part sandpaper, was the perfect Memphisian mélange of Sam Cooke, Al Green and Otis Redding.
In the midst of a late-career resurgence in which he won recognition from several national blues organizations, Walker has given his last performance. After returning late Monday night from a recording session in Oakland, he died in his sleep Tuesday morning at his St. Paul apartment. No cause of death is known.
“To me, he was the greatest soul since Sam Cooke, who was his biggest hero,” said Minneapolis musician Paul Metsa, who performed as a duo with Walker for the past nine years. “He was going to go to Chile on Thursday to headline a festival. In the last three or four years, the world finally realized how good he was. He got his due. And he couldn’t have been more gracious about the accolades.”
Walker’s resurgence began about five years ago when blues harmonica star Rick Estrin was performing in Minneapolis and a friend invited him to go see Walker at Shaw’s in northeast, his weekly gig with Metsa.
“He couldn’t believe that I could be in what he called a little dump like this,” Walker told the Star Tribune last year. “A few months after that I was a passenger on the Blues Cruise and I did a whole show with Rick and the Nightcats and from that day on, I got some recognition.”
That connection led to Walker’s Estrin-produced album, “If Nothing Ever Changes,” in 2015 and 2017’s “After a While” with the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra and lots of acclaim and opportunities.
Last year, Walker was named most outstanding males blues singer at the 25th annual Living Blues Awards. In recent years, he has performed in Italy, France, Argentina and Brazil, among other places.
The Mississippi-born, Memphis-reared Walker’s career has been a series of fateful and fruitful meetings. Having moved to Minneapolis in 1959 as a high school grad singing in gospel groups, he was at a laundromat one day when a guy said to him “You look like a singer.” They hit it off and formed an R&B group called the Valdons, the first of many Twin Cities soul bands for Walker.
While gigging in the Upper Midwest, Walker got an opportunity to go home to Memphis to record several songs, three of which were issued as singles in 1968.
“The biggest — and worst — thing that happened in my life in music is when I recorded ‘Lucky Loser,’ and I get a call from Shreveport and it was John R,” said Walker of the influential 1950s and ’60s radio DJ. “He said, ‘I want you to introduce your new song.’ I didn’t believe him. So when he got back on, I said, ‘This is a [bleeping] joke.’ ”
Click went the phone and Walker instantly realized his mistake. “That would have been my break. John R was a starmaker.”
Instead, Walker worked a day job as a machinist to take care of his wife and four children and performed on weekends in the black community at places like the Nacirema in Minneapolis and Road Buddies BBQ in St. Paul.
Stardom “could have happened years ago had I pursued it,” Walker reflected last year. “I was afraid to pursue music at that time. I was a young man with a family. I had all those questions about what’s gonna happen that no one could answer.”
About 13 years ago, Walker retired from his two-decades job as a health care worker and hooked up with the Butanes, a Twin Cities blues band. They played together for several years and released three albums. In the last several years, Walker has gigged weekly with Metsa at Shaw’s and performed with his own We “R” Band at the Dakota, Crooners and Minnesota Music Café.
Last year, Walker recorded a new tune with Metsa and Sounds of Blackness called “Ain’t Gonna Whistle Dixie Anymore,” a Metsa original with cutting social commentary inspired by the racial confrontation in Charlottesville, Va.
“Willie was sweeter than honey from a bee,” said Metsa, recalling how Walker once rented a pontoon on his own time and dime for a ride for more than a dozen seniors from the White Bear Lake nursing home where he worked.
“He was just that kind of person, always wanting to do for other people,” said Judy Walker, his wife of more than 30 years. “If he could make someone happy, he’d go for it — even if he had to break the rules.”
In addition to this week’s appearance in Chile, Walker had performances booked in January in California with the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra, with which he finished recording another album on Sunday. He performed on the annual Blues Cruise from San Diego to Mexico Oct. 26 to Nov. 2. He last sang Sunday night at a benefit for a fellow musician in Oakland.
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