The Dynamites with Charles Walker (USA)

If the first attention-grabbing horn lines of The Dynamites album Kaboom! evoke a dramatic curtain call from a late ‘60’s soul concert at the Apollo Theater, it’s no accident. After all, that’s exactly where Charles Walker, the band’s singer and front man, first cut his teeth as a performer. When the revolutionary ‘new bag’ now known as funk first made the scene, Walker was right there in the thick of it, opening for the likes of James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, and Wilson Pickett, and imbibing himself in a cultural movement’s genesis.

Walker recorded on many of the most reputed soul labels of that era, including Champion, Chess and Decca. In the early ‘60’s, his group ‘Little Charles and the Sidewinders’ became one of the hottest acts on the New York club scene, residing for many years as the house band at the legendary Harlem jazz and soul/R&B venue, Small’s Paradise. All this, combined with his Tennessee background, made Walker a natural to be included in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Night Train to Nashville exhibit.

As Doyle Davis, now owner of Outta Sight Records (the U.S. label that releases The Dynamites’ records) milled through the exhibit, curator Michael Gray raved about Walker’s recent performance at an event promoting the exhibit’s Night Train to Nashville release on Lost Highway Records. Davis knew then and there that he’d found the singer that Bill Elder (a.k.a. Leo Black), The Dynamites’ founder, had been searching for. The rest is history. Which brings us to now, presented with The Dynamites Featuring Charles Walker, a full and heavy, explosive, “rawthentic” super soul outfit fronted by a dynamic, tried and true soul veteran in top form.

The Dynamites are far from being alone in their second millennium pursuit of rekindling soul-funk’s original flames. A renaissance of funk and soul is snatching up listeners all around the globe. As a New York Times article titled ‘What’s Going On? Everything Soul is New Again,’ says loud and clear: soul music is making a formidable comeback. “More than at any time in recent memory soul music’s pressing syncopation and stirring hollers are churning within the popular mainstream.”

The Dynamites and Charles have been touring the U.S. and Europe extensively since their formation in 2007. Their Australian debut in April of 2010 met with tremendous reviews nationwide. They returned for the big summer festivals Dec-Jan of 2010 playing to 35,000 at Sydney Festivals FIRST NIGHT. The response has been so strong they return this November for their second Australian tour of 2011.