LIVE: Toby Walker @ Riverlink Park, 8/22/15

Review and photographs by Andrzej Pilarczyk

What a beautiful day with a terrific sunset…

The occasional train rumbled by Riverlink Park in Amsterdam, and each time bluesman Toby Walker tried to switch gears to play a train song, which he finally did at the end of the second set. It was a long train, and his song flew all around the country where trains go delivering their cargo. When the song lyrics hit New Orleans, he played a few bars of “When the Saints Come Marching In.”

Walker traversed the blues cannon by playing songs from lesser known blues artists, musicians who he met and spent time with, enriching the concert experience for blues fans, especially those steeped in the tradition.

And not unlike a jazz concert, whenever Walker soloed on one of his acoustic guitars, the audience spontaneously applauded his seamless efforts, including a difficult passage where he continued the bass line with his thumb while picking the lead with his other fingers.

Toby Walker is a true practitioner of the acoustic blues tradition…