Guitar great Joe Louis Walker brings his blues rock legacy to the Iron Horse on Friday, May 27th at 7PM. Local teen blues prodigy Eli Catlin opens.

 Considered one of the last of the great blues guitar heroes, alongside B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, Joe Louis Walker's career is unique. While other blues legends grew up in the pre-war South, Walker was raised in the Fillmore district of San Francisco in the late fifties and early sixties, at a time when blues and rock lived hand in hand. While honing his skills locally with the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins, Fred McDowell, Magic Sam and Earl "Zebedee" Hooker, he was also very much part of the local psychedelic scene. "I knew them all. Carlos Santana and the guys from the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead as well as Sly Stone and Larry Graham. My roommate at the time was Mike Bloomfield, fresh from introducing Bob Dylan to the electric guitar."

In the ‘80s, as the head of his Bosstalkers, Joe rapidly worked his way to the top of the profession with a series of stellar albums, produced by such luminaries as Steve Cropper  (of the M.G.’s) and Scotty Moore (Elvis's original guitar player) that radically changed the blues landscape of the late 20th Century.

"Glowing like a blue beacon" — in the words of noted blues critic Bill Dahl —, Walker is certainly the most brilliantly innovative guitarist on the contemporary blues scene today. A fact that owes him the unbridled admiration of certified fans like Mick Jagger, B.B. King, The Edge, Bono, and Herbie Hancock, who show up at his concerts whenever the occasion arises.

 Heating up the stage to start the night, Eli Catlin is a budding blues musician, a serious one, who devotes much of his time these days to working on his burgeoning career. He is home-schooled by his mother and attends North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens, a community-based education center in Hadley - which offers optimal time, he says, to devote to his "music stuff." At 15, Eli is off to a good start with a CD, "Eli Catlin Plays the Blues," under his belt.

Tickets for Joe Louis Walker plus Eli Catlin on Friday, May 27^th at 7PM at the Iron Horse in are available at Northampton Box Office, 413-586-8686 and online at IHEG.com