CD Review: Sammy Walker "Misfit Scarecrow" (Ramseur)
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Southern folksinger Sammy Walker recorded a quartet of albums in the
last half of the 1970s for Folkways and Warner Brothers (the latter
produced by Nick Venet), disappeared from the record scene for a
decade, and came back with a scattering of releases in the '90s and
'00s. As on these earlier albums, the directness of his vocals shows
the heritage of the '60s folk revival pioneers who have served as his
inspirations, including Phil Ochs, who got him his first label deals.
His songwriting is likewise direct and topical, echoing Ochs, Guthrie
and Dylan (at his more lucid and less opaquely poetic), as well as
early social witnesses like Leadbelly.
Walker accompanies himself on guitar and harmonica on these character-
driven songs, with Tony Williamson's mandolin sweetening several
tracks. The album opens with a depiction of oddball loners whose
surfaces you see on city streets, but whose back stories you'll never
know. It's a fitting start to an collection whose title track proudly
declares the singer's square-peg independence. The theme reappears in
"Homer Byron Guthrie," depicting individualism accrued through
longevity turned into isolation, and the portrait of "A Cold
Pittsburgh Morning" provides an even more stark view of aging. Walker
sings a first person story of desperate circumstances in a disarmingly
conversational tone on "Another Sad Song About You," and wraps the
domestic battery of "Marvin and Paula" in an ironic chorus. More
plainly emotional is "And the Mississippi Delta Cried," the story of
Emmett Till's 1955 murder, served here as a reminder that hatred's not
dead.
The writer's social conscience fuels "If Jesus Don't Show," an elegy
for a planet harboring fundamentalists who believe Jesus' resurrection
will arrive before global warming turns the lights out on the human
race. Social observation and the album's individualistic theme are
crossbred on "Proud and Poor" lionizing the family farmer whose
generational work ethic is deprecated by today's conglomerated,
multinational economy. Walker connects with the ripped-from-the-
headlines folk genre on "In the Year Twenty-O-Four," a clear-eyed
report of the Indian Ocean tsunami. As a progeny of the 60s folk boom,
Walker's developed a lyrical voice that's matured from the unfounded
certainty of youth (cleverly admitted on "Someday I'm Gonna Rock and
Roll") to the weathered viewpoints of middle-age. The torch he was
passed continues to burn brightly. [(c)2008 redtunictroll at hotmail dot
com]