BLUES LEGEND JOE LOUIS WALKER TO APPEAR ON CONAN ON MONDAY, MARCH 5

Award-winning blues guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Joe Louis Walker will appear on TBS's CONAN on Monday, March 5. Walker, along with his band, will perform the song Ride All Night from his new Alligator Records debut CD, Hellfire. Billboard says Hellfire is "one of the strongest albums in Walker's canon...gutbucket blues, joyous gospel, Rolling Stones-style rock crunch, and aching R&B... a heavenly showcase for Walker's virtues."

Walker has been releasing groundbreaking recordings since 1986, but his career goes all the way back to the mid-1960s. As a 16-year-old, he was the house guitarist at San Francisco's famed musical playground, The Matrix, where he played with or opened shows for everyone from Lightnin' Hopkins to Jimi Hendrix to Thelonious Monk. These ear-opening surroundings explain the ease with which Walker blends blues, rock, gospel, jazz and country, making it seem as if the walls between the styles never existed in the first place. The New York Times raves, "Walker is a singer with a Cadillac of a voice. He delivers no-nonsense, gutsy blues. His guitar solos are fast, wiry and incisive, moaning with bluesy despair." According to Living Blues, he is "one of today's modern musical masters." Rolling Stone simply called him "ferocious."

Since his debut release in 1986, Walker has released 23 more albums (and two DVDs) and toured worldwide. He's won four Blues Music Awards, including the 2010 Album Of The Year Award for Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Stony Plain Records), and has been nominated for 43 more. He's also recorded as a guest with some of the blues world's best-known artists, including appearances on Grammy-winning records by B.B. King and James Cotton.

Walker has played every major U.S. blues festival including The Chicago Blues Festival, The San Francisco Blues Festival, and The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He's performed at major European festivals including the Northsea Jazz Festival, Glastonbury, Notodden and Montreux, as well as festivals in Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Ireland, Turkey and Brazil. Walker has appeared on national television many times, including performances on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, The Don Imus Show and Later With Jools Holland in the UK.

Fans and critics have been celebrating Walker for years. Blues Revue calls Walker "one of contemporary blues' most dynamic and innovative musicians, releasing consistently exciting music. No matter what he's singing, Walker's approach is soulful, heartfelt and spellbinding." Living Blues said, "His fretwork is indelibly stamped with his own trademark blend of emotional heat and impeccable precision -- even at his most flamboyant, Walker sounds as if he's playing ideas, not just notes." A bluesman of immense talent and drive, Walker tours constantly playing concerts and festivals across the globe.

Early praise for Hellfire:

On Hellfire, Mr. Walker plays jump blues, slow, searing blues, Rolling Stones-style rockin' blues, electric country blues, Chicago blues and gospel blues. His raspy, powerhouse voice is out front while his stinging guitar cuts through the uncluttered arrangements.
--Wall Street Journal

Hellfire is delightful, down and dirty blues [with] influences from the psychedelic rock scene...loud Hendrixian virtuosity here, "Exile On Main Street"-era Stones there.
--Los Angeles Daily News

Hellfire is Walker's most rock-oriented release. His playing is ferocious. His wah-wah inflected solo on Hellfire digresses with the kind of fierce embellishments that Jimi Hendrix might've conjured. The slow-burn of What's It Worth spins ever wilder and wider into outer space with each solo. Walker attacks these songs like the gospel vocalist he once was.
--Chicago Tribune

Boundary-pushing blues rocker Joe Louis Walker is a legendary icon of modern blues. [He plays] powerful, gritty, heavy blues rock. Hellfire is a fierce album expertly incorporating his intense, racing solos into blues, spirituals and crashing rock jams. His playing on Hellfire has garnered comparisons to Hendrix himself.
--NPR Music