Johnny ''Big Moose'' Walker - Blue Love (Reissue) (1984/1996)

John Mayon Walker, 27 June 1927, Stoneville, Mississippi, USA, d. 27 November 1999, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Of partly Native American stock, Walker learned to play several instruments in his teens but was known primarily as a pianist. He began touring with blues bands from 1947, playing piano and organ, and worked with many Mississippi artists in the 40s and early 50s, including Ike Turner, Sonny Boy ‘Rice Miller’ Williamson, Lowell Fulson and Choker Campbell. Walker’s most enduring associations were with Elmore James and Earl Hooker, to whose recordings he made telling contributions on piano, although his organ work was less successful. He served in the US Army between 1952 and 1955 and recorded in his own right for Ike Turner in 1955, though the results were not released until the late 60s. Tracks that Walker made the same year for the Ultra label were released under the name ‘Moose John’. In the late 50s, he settled in Chicago, and over the next three decades became an in-demand session player for the likes of Elmore James (as ‘Bushy Head’), Otis Rush, Muddy Waters (on bass), Otis Spann, Sunnyland Slim, Jimmy Dawkins and Son Seals. He also recorded several solo albums in the US and Europe before a series of strokes ended his working career.