Creative Loafing Atlanta

Sammy Walker releases first album in 29 years

July 17th, 2008 by Chad Radford in Music news

After twenty nine years former Atlanta folkie Sammy Walker has returned from seclusion with a collection 16 Dylan-esque life tales. The album, titled Misfit Scarecrow is set to hit the streets on June 22 from Ramseur Records.

These days Walker hides out in the hills of North Carolina, but the Norcross native first started strumming on the mean streets of downtown Atlanta. Born in 1952, Walker first appeared singing and writing original songs that drew inspiration from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and Doc Watson.

According to a press release sent about Ramseur this month, “[Walker] began performing these songs in coffee houses around the University of Georgia in the early 70’s and in 1974, he decided to put a tape of his songs together. He sent this tape to Sis and Gordon Friesen at Broadside, where they were warmly received and subsequently published. Gordon gave a copy of the tape to Bob Fass at WBAI radio in New York City and Walker was invited to New York to appear on Fass’s show. Phil Ochs heard him for the first time on this show, and the two soon met and exchanged songs and stories.

Within two months, Ochs had arranged the recording of Sammy’s album for Folkways, and convinced Warner Brothers to sign him for two records. Ochs produced Sammy’s first album for Folkways, called Song For Patty and featured newspaper heiress Patty Hearst on the cover of the album.

Sammy recorded two superb albums for Warner Brothers that were produced by legendary producer Nik Venet. He was also managed by the late Harold Leventhal (manager of Woody Guthrie, The Weavers, Pete Seeger etc…).”