For Django Walker, country music is all in the family. His father, Jerry Jeff Walker, is one of Texas’ most beloved performers. Django, 20, is an accomplished musician in his own right. He’ll perform at the Varsity Thursday night to prove to Baton Rouge he’s his own man.
Walker’s debut album, “Down the Road” demonstrates his ability as a musician and a songwriter. As far as he’s concerned, people who accuse him of coat-tailing his famous father should give him a fair shake.
“People just start talking crap and writing crap about you,” he said. “We’re just like you know what, we do this because we love to do it. We don’t do this because my dad’s trying to put us in front of as big a crowd as possible and try to get me as big as he can. We just enjoy playing music.”
That said, Walker owes plenty to Texas music, including his father, for having established a base where country musicians can play the music they love without cow-towing to the glitzy Nashville record biz. Together, the Walkers and various other musicians have created a rift between the slick Nashville scene and the outsiders, Texans like Pat Green and Robert Earl Keen.
“Everybody down in Texas, we’re sick of seeing these crummy, over mass-produced bands getting put out,” Django Walker said. “There’s a new band every single week. They don’t write their own music and they don’t do anything. They’re just like pretty boys–or girls–with a voice. It’s just getting old.”
Recently, country megastars The Dixie Chicks played a huge role in bringing this issue to light. After issuing the multi-platinum albums “Wide Open Spaces” in 1998 and “Fly” in ’99, the three Texas-born chicks publicly expressed their unhappiness with the Nashville hierarchy, declared themselves independent of Sony, re-establishing Texas as their base with the release of their aptly named “Home” album this year on their own Open Wide Records.
“It’s just making everybody where we’re from just go, ‘You know what, if they [Nashville] don’t give a damn about us, if they don’t give a damn about the music that we play, then forget them,” Walker said. “We’ll do this on our own.”
And that’s just what he’s done. This year Walker released “Down the Road” on his own label, Lazy Kid Music, based in his hometown Austin, Texas. “Down the Road,” produced by Dixie Chick Natalie Maines’ father Lloyd Maines, earned well-deserved praise for its song-writing and quality. The album got one vote of confidence from veteran Pat Green who regularly covers Walker’s “Texas on My Mind” in concert.
Walker, who usually covers several country standards, promises a fun show for the Thursday night crowd.
“We love people who can jam along,” he said. “We do well with the up-beat fraternity crowd, people who can get into the show. We sing songs that everybody knows. We sing some originals. We do a little bit of everything. It’s going to be a good, high-energy show.”
Walker travels ‘down the road’ to local venue
November 14, 2002