Interview: Seth Walker

Meredith Carson: Good morning again. Seth is doing a concert at the Chautauqua Community House, which is such a fabulous small venue in a singer-songwriter series. Give us a little bit of background on you. You come from West Virginia? No, I got that wrong. 

Seth Walker: Close North Carolina. Just down the road from West Virginia.

Meredith Carson: Ish. Pretty different though. Thanks for being so nice. Alright, North Carolina. 

Seth Walker: Yeah, central North Carolina. I was born in Burlington, North Carolina, which is right in the middle of the state. And I grew up there. Both of my folks are classical musicians and musician teachers, so they propped up a cello in front of me when I was probably about five years old, something like that. My sister as well, she played the violin and started really young and so we grew up in this world of music and that laid a lot of groundwork for me, obviously. And it wasn’t until later, I guess in my college days where I discovered guitar and blues music and swing and jazz and soul music. And that really left a mark and really sent me on this wild goose chase 25 years later. 

Meredith Carson: Yeah. And so when you first started switching from a young cello player to a sort of, I think college, we could call semi- adult, don’t you think? 

Seth Walker: Yeah. I don’t know about that, but something like that. We can call it that if you want. 

Meredith Carson: In that neighborhood. You must have been listening to some specific artists. Do you remember who really caught your attention and you thought, “I might be able to do that. I hope I can do that. I wanna try to do that.” 

Seth Walker: Yeah. When I was in my dorm room, there were these guys and they were playing a lot of electric blue stuff. They were playing Clapton and Hendricks and Stevie Ray Vaughn, and I remember that feeling, sitting in my dorm room and playing along with Clapton records, just for hours and hours. And my uncle got wind of this, and he’s a great jazz bass player himself,  he had a radio show, a blues radio show, much like yourself. Through Eric Clapton I got turned onto Robert Johnson. And so when he got wind of that, he started sending me all these tapes of T-Bone Walker and Gate Mount Brown and Charlie Christian and Muddy Waters, and Lightning Hopkins and Reverend Gary Davis and all this stuff so those cassette tapes really galvanized the whole situation. But to get back to your question, I think it was T-Bone Walker when I first heard him play the guitar and the way it swung and the way it felt. I think that was probably the defining moment for me. A defining moment for me. 

Meredith Carson: Yeah. One of those where the light bulb goes off. 

Seth Walker: Yeah, his music has always been a huge influence on me.

Meredith Carson: Yeah. Fabulous player. So you have finished your 12th album, “Why The Worry”. And I was reading on your website and you said an interesting thing about it. You said, “the cd, this album doesn’t define me, it’s just this moment in time, the things I’m interested in, the things I’m playing, the things that are making a difference to me.” And you think about that very occasionally but it’s interesting to really just state that out in your promo as “don’t expect anything from this. It doesn’t sound like most of the stuff I’ve done before. I may not sound like this again.” What were you after on this cd, “Why The Worry”?

Seth Walker: It is funny. “Why The Worry” became a mantra in many ways because honestly, when I was going into this recording I wasn’t planning on making an album. And I think that actually is one thing that differentiates this album from most of my previous ones. Honestly, I was just going in there to just kick it around a little bit and we tried some covers and I didn’t even have that many original songs. I just felt like we almost backwards landed into this, not only a sonic tone, but this just whole relaxed feel and it just felt good. And it’s so easy to chase it around, and to try to steer the muse with, especially when you’re recording, trying to capture something. And I’m not saying we were in tune with that the whole time, but that became the compass for me to navigate myself through that. And I do feel like we landed on this feeling that I’m very proud of. 

Meredith Carson: Very cool. We are gonna see you in a bit. Your show is the 4th of May. It’s an 8:00 PM show up at the Chautauqua Community House. You and I are gonna talk a few more minutes here, and then, I’m gonna give away a pair of tickets to some lucky listeners out there in Radioland to get a chance to see your show for people who are super familiar with you. And know all the words to all your songs. What does this one represent? You’ve said it was spontaneous and you were really just in there fooling around and seeing what happened, and then these sparky things happened. How would you describe this CD as far as the way that it sounds, rather than how it originated to people who know your music well?

Seth Walker: I think it’s definitely more of a relaxed feeling. It’s not only a relaxed feeling, but it’s a lot of groove. It is a diverse record, but it’s not as singer songwriter read. 

Meredith Carson: And maybe not as traditional? 

Seth Walker: Yeah, it’s got these grooves that you can just put the record on and just go for a long drive kind of feeling. And on top of that I do feel like there’s more of a spiritual feeling through it. I think that’s good because it’s an earthy kind of mother nature kind of situation. I’m living up in North Carolina, in the mountains and I wrote a lot of this and recorded it surrounded by nature. So I think that might be a little different than some of my other records.

Meredith Carson: And also there was this little hurricane. 

Seth Walker: Yeah, there was a little baby hurricane. 

Meredith Carson: The hurricane, they came and pretty much ruined everything. Were you in the studio when, not the moment that the hurricane hit, but during that time, weren’t you recording the cd?

Seth Walker: Yeah, that was September 27th. I was in Asheville at my house that day. And, to bear witness to all that craziness was very hard to see. And I was a lucky one but my neighbors and many others didn’t come out so lucky. But I will say that in the throes of all that, my spirit, along with all of us in that region just got upside down, honestly. And there were moments where I didn’t even know if I wanted to put out this album. It’s a big endeavor emotionally, financially, and just energy going out and touring and doing the whole thing and after things finally calmed down after six weeks or so, I was able to reflect on it and realize that I wanted to help people who are helpless and hopeless. What could I do to help this serious problem? And I realize that music is my way. And so that helped me like ground and realign myself with the mission, if you will. And I was like, “Hey man, why the worry?” I need to listen to my own words here. Worry ain’t gonna help any of this. It doesn’t get us anywhere. So I was like, “Hey man, just get out there and put this music out and go be a part of the whole.” 

Meredith Carson: That is very well said. And you also made a pretty strong statement when you decided to put Bobby Charles song, “I Must Be in a Good Place Now” as the last song on the album. Bobby, one of my biggest heroes. 

Seth Walker: I’m glad we’re on the same page. He’s an incredible guy

Meredith Carson: Did you know that song before recording this album, or did you just run across it and think, oh man, that’d be pretty right on. 

Seth Walker: I had actually recorded that before these sessions but I never put it on an album. And yeah when I started putting this “Why The Worry” record together and the way it all flowed, I’m one of these old school guys that I like the album to have a flow from the sequence of it. And I just put that at the end of the record. I was like, “oh, like the little light again.” The little light bulb went on. And I was like “that seems like the right thing to do. That might work. That just might work.” And Bobby Charles, his music just, I don’t know. It’s just like you know how relaxed it all is.

Meredith Carson: And that is a perfect song for encouraging other people to do what you had just yourself decided to do, which is get back on the horse. Saddle up. We’re going back to real life.

Seth Walker: Hell yeah. 

Meredith Carson: Seth, it’s been so great to talk to you. Looking forward to your concert on the 4th of May up at Chautauqua Community House. Any last words for our folks for today? 

Seth Walker: Oh, man I appreciate your time today and always love coming back to Boulder and really looking forward to the show. Hope to see you there. 

Meredith Carson: Thank you so much. I hope to see you there as well. Thanks so much for making time for us and putting up with our one bad phone line this morning. I appreciate it. 

Seth Walker: Thank you, Meredith. Have a good day. 

Meredith Carson: You too, Seth. Thanks a lot. Bye-Bye.