1. Rambling Woman
2. Burying Ground
3. Swear to Tell the Truth
4. Drink to Much
5. Lord Have Mercy
6. Every Night
7. Annielee

Johnny "Big Moose" Walker - Organ, Piano, Vocals
Ike Anderson - Bass
Lefty Dizz - Guitar
Jeff Taylor – Drums

Shy, retiring characters don’t get called ‘Big Moose’, and loud barrelhouse pianist Johnny Walker got his tag from wearing his hair long and shaggy, but also for his wild personality. He was hugely popular with his fellow musicians for his energy and humour, and onstage he sometimes performed wearing a gorilla mask. When on tour in New Zealand he ‘went native’, living for a while as a member of a Maori community, perhaps as an echo of his own Native American heritage. Although he did not release a lot of solo material, his pounding left hand can be heard on hundreds of Chicago sessions in Moose’s long career as a sideman.

John Mayon Walker was born in the heart of the Delta, in Greenville MS in 1929, and he showed some musical ability as a kid on the church organ, also learning guitar, tuba and even vibraphone. He played barrelhouse piano around the local juke-joints, and acquired that ‘Big Moose’ tag working the circuit with Elmore James and appearing on the King Biscuit Time radio show with Rice ‘Sonny Boy II’ Miller. He then settled in Memphis, where he skipped around various Blues bands, playing with Ike Turner and Earl Hooker among others. His musical career was interrupted when he was drafted into the Korean War, and when he was discharged on the West Coast in 1955, Moose began playing in Lowell Fulson‘s band. He won a talent contest run by Johnny Otis and released a single on Johnny’s Ultra label under the name ‘Moose John’.

Moose gravitated to the Chicago scene in the late 50s, where his pounding style got him a lot of work as a sideman, especially alongside Earl Hooker and Elmore James, and he also played on many sessions with Otis Rush and Magic Sam in the 60s. Moose issued a few solo singles on small Chicago labels during this time, but his first album ‘Ramblin’ Woman’ came in 1969, again with Earl on guitar. While they were in California cutting that album, Moose worked on the memorable album ‘If You Miss ‘Im…I Got ‘Im’, with Earl and his cousin John Lee Hooker. Sadly, that was one of Earl’s last projects. When Moose returned to Chicago he played regularly with Jimmy Dawkins, Mighty Joe Young and Son Seals. Moose seemed ready to work in the studio or hit the road at the drop of a hat, and his recording credits in the 70s reads like a roster of the whole Chicago scene. Willie Dixon, Junior Wells and Lightnin’ Hopkins all used Moose, and he even toured with Muddy Waters playing bass. Moose joined Eddie Shaw’s Wolf Gang, which had been Howlin’ Wolf‘s band, and when they recorded for the Alligator series ‘Living Chicago Blues’, Bruce Iglauer had Moose cut some solo tracks with Louis Myers for the compilations. Big Moose plays some low-down, barrelhouse piano Blues;

Not much of Johnny’s work is still available, but his second solo album has some delightful stuff. Touring Europe with the American Blues Festival in 1979, Moose shared an album with Lefty Dizz for the French Black and Blue label. He toured extensively at this time in the States and Canada, in Europe, and on tour in New Zealand he lived in a Maori village for a while, becoming an honorary member of a family. Moose delivered his own ‘Blue Love’ album in 1984, where he ran through a series of standards in his own unique style. By the late 80s, Moose was not in good health. Several compilation albums were released from Moose’s long back-catalogue, but his prolific studio days were behind him. A series of strokes in the early 90s ended his career, and he passed away in Chicago in 1999. --- allaboutbluesmusic.com

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A1 	Footrace 	3:45
A2 	The Sky Is Crying 	5:30
A3 	Rambling Woman 	3:10
A4 	Moose Huntin' 	6:48
A5 	Chicken Shack 	4:49
B1 	Leave Me 'Lone 	2:55
B2 	Baby Talk 	3:40
B3 	Would You Baby 	3:40
B4 	Rock Me Momma 	3:30
B5 	Moose Is On The Loose 	7:00

Johnny "Big Moose" Walker – piano, organ, vocals
Earl Hooker – guitar
Chester (Gino) Skaggs – bass
Otis Hale – tenor saxophone
Paul Humphrey – drums

Johnny Walker--Big Moose, Busy Head, Moose John, J. W. Walker--by whatever name he was called him, he was Chicago’s irrepressible wild man of blues piano. He wore a splendid smile and long, wavy hair; in his briefcase he carried a gorilla mask and a “Big Moose” jersey. Just as musicians and audiences enjoyed Moose’s antics, they also admired the exuberant, two-fisted blues he played. He’s worked alongside the best in the business and rambled from coast to coast.

John Mayon Walker’s story was colorful from the start. He was born June 27, 1927, in Stoneville, Mississippi, but the way Moose told it, “I was really born in a graveyard, playing with the tombstones.” Indian blood and long flowing hair ran in the family. He picked up the nickname Moose as a youngster hanging around the pool hall in Greenville, Mississippi. “I wore my hair so long maybe I looked like a moose, I don’t know. I asked the guys, ‘Why you call me Moose?’ They said, ‘Well, that’s the only thing that fit for you.’”

Moose made his first music on an old church organ. He played guitar in the cotton fields, took tuba lessons and once had visions of becoming a famous blues vibes player. During the ‘50s he became known as a pianist and bass player as he roamed through the Delta and beyond. He played with many local Greenville bluesmen, joined Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm in Clarksdale and sat in with the King Biscuit Boys in Helena, Arkansas. He worked the Mississippi juke joints with Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson. He switched to guitar for gigs with Boyd Gilmore in Arkansas and with pianist Eddie Snow in Cairo, Illinois. He lived with bandleader Tuff Green in Memphis and with pianist Pinetop Perkins in East St. Louis. He got to do some shows with Lowell Fulson when Fulson’s bandleader, Choker Campbell, hired Moose to drive the group around the country. He traveled even more extensively with the roadmaster of the blues, Earl Hooker. During the drunken party in St. Louis, he won a $50 dollar bet with Ike Turner by jumping off the third floor of a building. (It was just enough to cover the hospital bill.) And he joined the army and went to Korea.

He did some recording in the ‘50s too. His first studio date was with Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson, for Trumpet Records in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1955 Ike Turner taped Moose in a Greenville club; two of those sides, credited to J.W Walker, appeared years later on the Kent Label. He appeared with Earl Hooker on Johnny Otis talent show in Los Angeles and cut his first 45, as Moose John, for Otis’ Ultra label, also in 1955.

Moose recorded even more after Sunnyland Slim brought him to Chicago. He backed Earl Hooker, Ricky Allen, Lorenzo Smith and others on local sessions. Willie Dixon took Moose to New York in 1960 to do some studio work for Prestige/Bluesville. Moose rejoined Elmore James at Silvio’s on the West Side and went to New Orleans with Elmore to record for Bobby Robinson’s Fire label. At another session for Robinson, Moose sang a few himself. Those tracks ended up being credited only to “the mysterious Bushy Head” on an Elmore James LP release in England. Two Chicago labels, The Blues and Age released Big Moose singles during the ‘60s. Moose’s first album came in 1969 when he and Earl Hooker went to Los Angeles to record for ABC Bluesway.

The guitar wizard Earl Hooker was Moose’s closest partner, on Chicago gigs and chaotic road trips. After Hooker’s death in 1970, Moose played in several other Chicago bands, including those of Jimmy Dawkins, Mighty Joe Young and Louis Myers. When Moose had his own gigs, he usually worked solo, or with just his drummer, Chris Moss. The duo once played bump-and-grind organ music for go-go dancers at sleazy Near North Side Joints. Moose also appeared at the Soul Queen restaurant on the South Side and played between band sets at Kingston Mines on the North Side.

In the late ‘70s, Moose joined Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang, just in time for their session for Alligator’s Living Chicago Blues series. Alligator president Bruce Iglauer was so impressed by Moose’s two-fisted piano that he offered him a session of his own for the series. Moose responded with four intense songs on a session that included his pal Louis Myers on guitar. Bass guitar was almost unnecessary, as Walker carried the bottom end with his pounding left hand.

Moose went on to record a handful of albums for various small labels, mostly in Europe, and to tour whenever anyone called him. In 1982 he made a memorable trip to New Zealand where he ended up living in a native Maori village, venerated as a member of the tribe!

Johnny “Big Moose” Walker suffered a serious stroke in the late 1980s and lived for a number of years in a Chicago nursing home before his death in 1999. No piano player of such sheer power and strength has arisen in Chicago to replace him. ---alligator.com

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