"Damn Fine Blues!" Original & classic delta blues featuring slide guitar and soulful vocals. A blues gumbo repertoire that can conjure up the ghosts of highway 61 & the delta blues experience. Austin "Walkin' Cane" is a blues singer, songwriter and slide guitarist that performs acoustic solo, duo & electric band sets. Walkin' Cane has traveled all over the world from New Orleans, Louisiana to Belfort, France and has acquired various blues/instrumentalist awards over the years. Austin walked for ten years with a cane due to an arterial venous malformation at birth. While performing on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a homeless man called out "Hey Walkin' Cane got some spare change for a brother?!" Austin took the jibe as his nickname. In 1996, after years of battling the inevitable, his left leg was amputated below the knee. A year after the surgery, he returned to the music scene stronger & without need of a cane. In 2002, Austin & Karen Starks were married at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee and began recording his 706 Union Ave. cd at the legendary studio immediately after the ceremony. "The thought of getting married & recording in the same room where many of my heroes took their first steps was incredible." Austin "Walkin' Cane" is proud to be sponsored by National Reso-Phonic Guitars, Dr. Z Amplifiers & Ernie Ball Strings.
"Walkin' Cane's" latest cd, "Murder of a Blues Singer", was inspired by an after hour diner conversation with blues legend Robert Jr. Lockwood. "The stories were flowing like the grease off our plates", subsequently the album is saturated in classic delta blues, as were the tales of Lockwood's stepfather, Robert Johnson. Mr. Lockwood had agreed to perform on the record, but fate had changed that path. The Walkin' Cane Band featuring Mike Barrick on bass, Michael Bay on guitar & Jim Wall on drums captured the perfect "live in the studio" feeling that Austin & co-writer Chris Allen had envisioned for these songs. The band is a "well oiled machine" & has been writing, recording & performing together since 1998. Special guests on "Murder of a Blues Singer" include Colin Dussault (Colin Dussault's Blues Project), Eric "Eroc" Sosinski (Michael Stanley, Wish You Were Here) and one of Cleveland's finest gospel groups, the Prayer Warriors.
