JR. WALKER AND THE ALL STARS
“Shotgun” was much more than one of the most danceable records of all time.
Junior Walker and the All Stars — Billy Nyx, drums; Willie Woods, guitar; Vic Thomas, organ — have been a chart-topping combo since “Shotgun” won a Grammy Award as the best rhythm-and-blues recording of 1965. Supposedly written in a Benton Harbor, Michigan hotel room, “Shotgun” was much more than one of the most danceable records of all time. It marked the maturation of Junior Walker’s lyric and rhythmic style, and its pared-down instrumentation, tricky sixteenth-note patterns and clean, distinct lines became a primary influence for numerous rock and r&b groups.
Motown’s biography furnishes little concrete information about Walker’s early life; it doesn’t even give us his given name. What details there are could easily have been imagined: musical talent became evident at age nine; formed the All-Stars with high school chums; played bars and clubs in Michigan and Indiana; met Berry Gordy and began recording, for Motown. Junior’s first hit was “Cleo’s Mood,” a slinky sort of sax number that had the texture, but little of the rhythmic drive, of his later hits. Next came a succession of finger-popping, up-tempo dance numbers which brightened mid-sixties AM radio considerably and are still among the most-requested records for dances and oldies radio shows.
