Celebrating Juneteenth with sax master Junior Walker
Celebrating Juneteenth with sax master Junior Walker
Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 300 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
As Juneteenth approaches on June 19, it’s time to put together a soulful playlist for those barbecue family gatherings and upcoming Father’s Day celebrations. Who could be more soulful than the sax master himself—Junior Walker—who was born on this day in Arkansas.
Laura Hightower at Musician Guide opens his story:
During the heyday of Motown Records, built largely upon a roster of vocal groups and spin-off soloists like Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, none of the label’s great instrumentalists received their due credit…. However, Junior Walker, one of popular music’s premier saxophonists and leader of Motown’s Junior Walker and the All Stars, stood as the lone exception. […]
The group recorded some of Motown’s most enduring hits, the best of which included instrumentals, and Walker’s brilliant sax solos would influence players for years to come. Jazz saxophonist David Sanborn, among others, credits Walker’s style as an influence. “There isn’t a sax player out there who didn’t get something from him,” noted Jimmy Vivino of the group Jimmy Vivino and the Black Italians, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times. Walker, continued Vivino, was known for “his command of what the sax players call the upper register–funky.” […]
While playing a show about a year after arriving in Michigan, Junior Walker and the All Stars were spotted by Johnny Bristol, who recommended the band to R&B mover and shaker Harvey Fuqua, a former member of the doo-wop group the Moonglows. He immediately signed the All Stars to his own Harvey label, allowing Walker full rein to record a series of raw, saxophone-led instrumentals. By the time Walker made these early recordings, the group’s trademark sound–blustery, honking sax over funky rhythms–was already intact.
In 1963, Fuqua sold his Harvey and Tri-Phi labels to Berry Gordy’s Detroit-based Motown Records. As a result, Walker found himself under contract with Motown subsidiary Soul Records, where he would perfect a blend of raunchy R&B and Detroit soul. Although the All Stars didn’t quite fit in with the sound of young America and Motown’s smooth, studio-bound instrumentation, after Walker told the label he had just written a song to go along with the shotgun, a new dance popular in Michigan, Motown sent him to the studio. But when the assigned vocalist failed to show up for the session, Walker, who had never before sung on record, was forced to sing as well as play saxophone for the single.
“Shotgun,” with its saxophone riffs and call-and-response vocals, established Walker as Motown’s prime exponent of traditional R&B, a reputation that was confirmed by a string of hits from the mid-1960s through the early-1970s. Released in 1965, “Shotgun” became Junior Walker and the All Stars’ first hit, reaching number four on the pop chart and number one on the R&B chart. Thereafter, Walker and his group continued to turn out similar songs filled with growling chants (Walker would increasingly add his own vocals to the quartet’s overall sound), vibrato-laden saxophone, and funk-inspired dance beats. Throughout the remainder of 1965, the group’s popularity accelerated thanks to the hit party singles “Do the Boomerang,” peaking at number ten on the R&B chart, and “Shake and Fingerpop,” climbing the R&B chart to number seven.
Here’s “Shotgun (DJ Richie Rich Remix)”:
The Arkansas Encyclopedia continues his story:
“Shotgun” made the band famous nationally, and it continued to release a string of hits including “What Does It Take (To Win Your Love),” “Road Runner,” “Shake and Fingerpop,” and “Gotta Hold On to This Feeling.”
The All Stars’ last hit came in 1972. Walker worked solo during the disco era, played saxophone for the band Foreigner during the 1980s, and toured with his son Autry DeWalt III on drums during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Walker died on November 23, 1995, of cancer.
Black Past has more about Walker’s beginnings and the members of the All Stars:
The ensemble’s legendary composer and leader was Autry “Jr. Walker” DeWalt Mixon II, was born on June 14, 1931, in Blytheville, Arkansas. However, he was reared in South Bend, Indiana. He began playing saxophone while in high school. At the age of 16, he formed an instrumental ensemble called the Jumping Jacks, calling himself Jr. Walker after a childhood friend.
The other members of the All-Stars are rhythm guitarist Eddie Willis, born in Grenada, Mississippi, on June 3, 1936; Hammond organist John Ellis Griffith Jr. was born on July 10, 1936, in Detroit, Michigan; bass guitarist James Jamerson, born on January 29, 1936, in Edisto Island, South Carolina, and percussionist Benny Benjamin, Jr. born, July 15, 1925, in Birmingham, Alabama. […]
Over the course of their 15-year career, Junior Walker & the All-Stars, with a beautiful raunchy-raw R&B Tenor saxophone sound, released 23 albums and impacted the world of R&B for more than half a century. Jr. Walker & the All-Stars’ “Shotgun” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002, and Jr. Walker & The All-Stars were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame 2007.
Let’s chill out with more Junior Walker and his All Stars.
1969’s “What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)”:
“Cleo’s Mood”:
Here’s Junior Walker on “Late Night with David Letterman” on Nov. 25, 1985:
“These Eyes”:
“(I’m a) Roadrunner”:
This short doc introduces the rest of the All Stars:
There is a downside to Walker’s tale: dying with nothing. He did, however, leave us his legacy:
Join me in the comments below for more and to discuss. Do you remember any of these hits?
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