Originally published 23 June 2022
Photo: supplied
Big D Walker, an American blues musician with a pedigree that includes playing with Michael Bloomfield, Luther Tucker, Lowell Fulson, Big Mama Thornton, Percy Mayfield and Albert Collins, has washed up on Cambodian shores and is making his presence felt in Phnom Penh. Find him this weekend at Bosporus on Friday and Oscar’s on the Corner on Saturday.
Do you have a pet musical hate?
Audiences these days seem to listen to very much the same stuff all the time, they’re not very eclectic. They get into house music and then you play they some blues or rock’n’roll and they’re, like, what’s that?
A private musical indulgence:
For the last five years I’ve been producing music all by myself on my computer. And you shouldn’t play with your stuff too much, but I really enjoy it, and I learn a lot from it. I spend too much time like that.
The year you first came to Cambodia:
Three weeks ago, almost a month now.
An early music memory:
My uncle John played boogie-woogie piano, and he had a speakeasy in the basement of our house, where they would play blues, and he would hand out little paper cups with whiskey or something in it. I would sneak down and peek around. My grandmother didn’t want me to be there. Also my aunt singing to me every night – that’s probably the earliest.
The last thing you had to eat:
A pineapple.
A country you want to visit:
Before I die I would like to visit the continent of Africa – I have never been there. I’m saving it until last.
A book or movie you keep going back to:
I have a hard time watching a movie twice. The sutras of the Buddha, the Bible, or the Bhagavad Gita – I would go back to all of those.
What languages do you have?
I speak fluent Swedish. I used to better French 30 years ago, I lived in Belgium for a while but since moving to Sweden I’ve never used it.
Your primary instrument, and when you started playing it:
I started playing the harmonica when I was about six or seven years old, because my uncle John, the boogie-woogie piano player, he gave me one of his harmonicas. He would play and say “blow, boy, blow”. I learned this style from him, and that’s the style I’ve taught to people for over 30 years – probably the simplest style you can play, I call it the Okie-Dokie, like from Oklahoma.
Something people might be surprised to know about you:
In 1974 I was the California State Karate Champion. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me now! I also got fourth place in the internationals that same year.
You have a time machine and a magic ticket to one gig or festival in the past. What do you choose?
I’d have to go and see Charlie Parker.
A question from the last participant, Michelle Neukirchen: What’s your favourite board game and why?
Actually it’s Go Fish. I have very fond memories of my three teenage boys and my wife sitting around in the evening playing and talking and laughing. Probably some of the happiest times of my life.