| |
This is my Tribute to our very best friend, Johnny Walker.
Nashville lost one the all time greats when the Lord took Johnny home October 22 2006.Age 75 of Goodlettsville. He was a member of Grace Baptist Church, a devoted husband, father & Pa, served our country in the US Army during the Korean Conflict, a longtime musician, an avid outdoorsman, & loved flying remote controlled airplanes as a member of the AMA. He retired from Walker Construction Company after building Berry's Jewelry & Loan of Madison, where he later worked in sales for 13 years. He is survived by his loving wife of 52 years, Lucy Rohelier Walker; sons, Steven (Melissa) Walker, Aaron (Robin) Walker & Michael (Cynthia) Walker; daughter, Julie (George) Williams; sister, Juanita Seremet; 8 grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren and 1 on the way.
Johnny was just a really special person to know. I can't adequately describe his personality because he was so unique. Even after you thought you knew him well Johnny always had a way of surprising you with something he had done or knew about. I don't think we that knew him realized how many lives this man touched. When you were Johnny's friend you knew you had a friend. He made you feel special. If there was something that he was able to do for you he would try and do it. But it wasn't what Johnny did or didn't do that made him special it was the way he treated people. He treated people with Love. He would always take the time to listen to what you were saying. And he just didn't listen, he cared about what you said.
We first got to know Johnny about 9 or 10 years ago when he decided to record some of the songs that he had loved over the years. I had know him when I was a kid from living in the bend and going to school with Aaron and knowing Steven from mutual friends. When I would see him down at the store we'd all say "how you doing Johnny" and he would say "working son, working". Of course Johnny knew my Dad, Duane Marrs, for over 30 years. Johnny had taken steel guitar lessons from Dad when he had Marrs Music store in Madison. And it was Dad who encouraged Johnny to come to my studio and record his first CD called " For Old Times Sake".
 Here are some samples
That Ole Moon Tennessee Border
Johnny Really enjoyed recording. When we first got together he thought we would record everything all at once and be done with it. As he would say "what you see is what you get". But at that time I was still using a drum machine and would have to build the music up from scratch one piece at a time. And when we finally got to the vocals I would make Johnny do the song several times to get the best performance and then go back and fix certain words. Johnny always kidded me about saying "lets do it again, lets do it again".
Johnny continued his recording with the CD "Back Porch Swing". Here he branched out and did some more contemporary songs. He also played an electric guitar solo called "Guitar Boogie" and did a steel guitar solo on "Candy Kisses". Before we finished the recording for this CD Johnny came to me one day and said he wanted to do a song with just vocals. It was an old song that he had heard from somewhere and he didn't have a copy of it. So Johnny and I sat down and he taught me the song and with a guitar and a drum beat. Johnny did all the lead vocals and then added the background oompa's that he made up. I just followed his lead and kept adding and stacking. We did handclaps and tons of harmony parts. When it was all over we had 16 tracks of singing and clapping. It was one of the best times I ever had with Johnny. I laughed so hard that day. The song on the CD is "Gospel Boogie" because Johnny didn't know the real name of it.
 Here are some samples:
Candy Kisses Guitar Boogie Gospel Boogie
For Johnnys next CD "The next voice you hear", he brought some songs from Ray Price, Hank Williams, Don Gibson, and another song that Johnny wrote when he was in his late teens or early twenties called "Cruel Hearted Girl". This CD turned out to be a very serious musical undertaking. He may have never realized this, but he was pushing himself, and all of us that played on his CD's, to do harder songs with more complicated arrangements. And Johnny worked on his vocals untill he was satisfied that he had done his very best. Johnny was very aware of vocal parts that He didn't have right and would no longer leave it to me to say "do it again" , but He was the one that wanted to work on it untill it was just right.
 Here are some samples
It makes no difference now The next voice you hear Cruel hearted girl
|
