Little Toby Walker, who called Huntington home until moving to New Jersey recently, continues to garner fans and well-deserved buzz beyond the New York metropolitan area and on both sides of the Atlantic for his fine Delta blues and ragtime guitar playing. But until this month, he had not played one of America’s oldest and most legendary folk festivals. Wearing his trademark hat, a colorful short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans, he made his Philadelphia Folk Festival debut earlier this month.
The 2002 International Blues Challenge winner played a 25-minute, early-evening set on the Main Stage at the Old Pool Farm near Schwenksville, Pennsylvania on Friday, August 17, alternating between acoustic and national steel guitars. He also participated in Saturday and Sunday afternoon song swaps on smaller stages with gifted singer-songwriters Pat Wictor and Jack Williams.
One of the things that seasoned, old-time blues musicians down south, with whom he spent some time, taught him was to “take an old song and do it in my own way, my own style,” Walker told his Main Stage audience. He did just that as he opened his set with a fast, finger-pickin’ good rendition of a Blind Willie Jefferson tune, “Nobody’s Fault but Mine.”
Injecting some humor into his short set early on, Walker proceeded to wail “What I Used to Do All Night Now Takes Me All Night to Do,” which he learned from Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, before breaking into his own modern-day reworking of “Just Give Me That Old-Time Religion.” Walker recalled the first time he ever sang “Just Give Me That Online Religion [at God.com].” It was during a concert for the Folk Music Society of Huntington at the Congregational Church in Centerport, with what he described as a 3,000-pound cross dangling over his head. As then, he evoked a warm response from his audience — including several from the Huntington area — and had little difficulty securing their assistance in singing the refrain to his song parody.
Joining him on stage and adding some nice bass licks to the number was Freebo, a talented singer-songwriter and guitarist who is, perhaps, best known for his many years backing Bonnie Raitt and his studio work and tours with other major artists. Freebo also backed Walker on another original composition, “Bernie’s Blues,” which he said was inspired by an old man in Glen Cove who founded Yazoo Records and collected old southern blues, jazz and gospel records down south. Walker closed out his all-too brief set with the traditional “I Know You Rider,” performed in his own distinctive style.
Little Toby Walker may no longer live on Long Island, but he’ll be around. He and Pat Wictor share a bill at the Brokerage in Bellmore on Wednesday evening, September 26.
Photo of Toby Walker performing at the 46th Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival by Walter Hansen.
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