By Raymond Morin

Somehow, I had never heard of “Little” Toby Walker before his new CD arrived in my mailbox.  When I opened the envelope, though, I was delighted to find out that Walker had been led to me by a mutual friend, Mr. Denis Turbide, and I decided to give the disc my utmost attention.  I could surmise from the packaging that the man has good taste in guitars: there are a couple of handsome Huss & Dalton models featured, one on the cover and one on the inside panel, and Walker indeed plays an H&D OM, along with a couple of National guitars, on these recordings.  It was also readily apparent from the album title (and the bound-and-gagged cover portrait) that Walker has a sense of humor about himself, which immediately endeared me to him…  a lot of us young guitar-slingers definitely take ourselves way too seriously!  All of this, combined with a few familiar rags and fingerstyle-guitar showpieces peppered into the tracklist,  led me to assume that Mr. Walker probably knows his way around 6 strings…  and though that assumption proved correct, my opinions regarding this disc are mixed. Continue reading →