Photo Credit: Rick Porter
For a bandleader so determined in his pursuit of the big time, it’s ironic that one of the takeaways from Charles Walker’s pursuit of funk is the value of compromise.
A former English teacher and the current keyboardist-leader of The Charles Walker Band, the North Central Wisconsin native says that he wanted to move to Chicago in order to make it in music full time, but his wife at the time nixed the idea of going to that big of a city from their small town environs. So, he says, “We kind of compromised on Milwaukee. It wasn’t so big that she was uncomfortable.”
And though Walker’s marriage didn’t last, Milwaukee has become a comfortable base for him to nurture his three-piece band into a unit regularly touring the U.S. Midwest, South and East Coast. When asked why his adopted hometown would be a hospitable environment to cultivate his trio’s generously energetic, respectively appropriative approach to funk, it produces a rare instance of speechlessness. “I don’t have a good answer to that,” he says.
That’s fine, though, as The Charles Walker Band’s artistry is plenty articulate. Although funk may be most thought of as an R&B variant most associated with the mid-1960s through the early ’80s, Walker’s approach to it is free of retro fetishism on his latest album, Reckless n Young. So, what attracted him to what some may think of as an antiquated genre? “You have to play what speaks to you and what you love,” Walker explains. “Funk is, at its roots, happy music.”
Plus there are signs that funk might be taking root again on the commercial airwaves, Walker says, pointing at one diminutive pop star in particular. “Bruno Mars has adrenalized it,” Walker says. “He’s taken it all the way down the field.” A desire to ascend to Mars’ heights is where Walker’s determination especially comes into play; his goal, he says, is “for the Charles Walker Band to become a household name,” and the fact that he assigned the fulfillment of his directive a date—July 22, 2020, if you’d like to hold him to it—gives the goal some urgency.
He’s fond of saying that those who go to a Charles Walker Band show for their first time may come in as an audience member but leave as family. Along with his vocalist-bassist Porsche Carmon (his partner both on and off stage) and drummer Paris Howard, Walker has put sweat equity into that relationship. As they embark on their stage show that has received kudos from music business trade magazine Billboard and other national publications, Walker says, “The first thing is, literally, we ask them ‘Are we family or not?’” Establishing that relationship from the get-go allows him to follow up by saying, “Since we’re family...,” allowing the band to better be naturally themselves with their newfound kin.
“A big part of what we do is [for] people to feel connected,” Walker says. Citing one of his funky forebears in Sly And The Family Stone, Walker adds that one mission of his act is “for people to see that we’re all basically the same.” Before Carmon’s addition to the group several years ago, Walker specialized in another music that embraces the emotional commonality of humankind: blues. Even as the band has taken a poppier direction, those blues influences remain. “I don’t think that element will ever leave,” Walker affirms. “No matter how much else I write, there’s still going to be that element that’s always there.”
The Charles Walker Band performs Saturday, Dec. 9 at Red Dot, 6715 W. North Ave., at 9 p.m.
