While the baby-faced Joshua Ray Walker‘s journey from Dallas to Nashville may have been slow, the journey has been epic and has seen him hailed by Rolling Stone as “country’s most fascinating young songwriter”.
His new album, See You Next Time, reads like the tattered dreams of ‘barflies and wannabe cowboys, bleary-eyed dreamers and hopelessly lost souls’ and marks the final instalment in a trilogy that originated with Walker’s 2019 debut Wish You Were Here.
Here he is, performing an acoustic version of Sexy After Dark from his new album, backstage at Brooklyn Bowl in Philadelphia, PA. Video by Bob Sweeney.
Walker is a fresh voice that stands out from the crowd…if this is the future sound of country, then it’s a far brighter one. Talking about the trilogy he states:
“The whole idea with the trilogy was to use the honky-tonk as a setting where all these different characters could interact with each other,” says Walker, who drew immense inspiration from the local dive bars he first started sneaking into and gigging at as a teenager growing up in East Dallas.
“In my mind, this album’s taking place on the night before the bar closes forever—the songs are just me taking snapshots of that world, and all the moments that happen in it.”
See You Next Time is out now and he has a number of upcoming European and UK Tour Dates. See below:
Joshua Ray Walker Tour Dates
August 10 Krøsset – Oslo, NO
August 11 Krøsset – Oslo, NO
August 12 Vaktbua – Kristiansand, NO
August 13 Ole Bull – Bergen, NO
August 16 Buktafestivalen – Tromsø, NO
August 18 Trevarefabrikken – Henningsvær, NO
August 19 Parkenfestivalen – Bodø, NO
August 20 P Stereo – Trondheim, NO
August 21 Rootsy Summer – Falkenberg, SE
August 22 Himlavalvet – Stockholm, SE
August 24 Stairway – Copenhagen, DK
August 25 Nochtwache – Hamburg, DE
August 26 Mid Sussex Americana Festival – Hassocks, UK
August 27 O2 Academy2 – London, UK
August 28 The Long Road Festival – Lutterworth, UK
August 29 Gosforth Civic Theatre – Gateshead, UK
August 30 Endless Summer – Glasgow, UK
August 31 The Running Horse – Nottingham, UK
September 1 Future Yard – Birkenhead, UK
September 3 White Shelter – Nantes, FR
September 4 Vinyl Bar – Clermont-Ferrand, FR
September 6 Kulturrampe – Krefeld, DE
September 8 TivoliVredenburg – Utrecht, NL
September 10 Tuckerville Festival – Enschede, NL
September 11 Misty Fields Festival – Asten, NL
September 11 Leffingeleuren Festival – Oostende, BE
More here: http://www.joshuaraywalker.com/