“I’m just trying to help musicians that I believe in get heard.” –W.B. Walker
BY PHILL BARNETT
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
DINGESS, W.Va. — W.B. Walker’s Old Soul Radio Show first hit internet airwaves in June 2012 on Walker’s website wbwalker.com. The show officially became a podcast on iTunes April 5, 2013.
In his 10 years on air, Walker has shone a spotlight on independent and developing artists from central Appalachia and the surrounding music community via album reviews, interviews and performance showcases.
“I just got inspired by hearing Chris Knight and Ray Wylie Hubbard and folks like that,” said Walker. “I just wanted to do what I can to help good music get heard. I’ve been blessed. It’s done pretty good, you know?”
Walker’s show was among the first generation of podcasts and was the only nationally popular show at the time highlighting Appalachian roots music. Old Soul Radio Show was one of the first platforms to highlight artists such as Colter Wall, Tyler Childers and Senora May.
“When I first started, nobody done podcasts. There wasn’t no Spotify, no Spotify playlists,” recalled Walker. “I was just blessed to get started when I did, to get started on the ground floor.”
Walker spoke to the Mountain Citizen outside Bar None in Huntington on Sunday. He was there celebrating his birthday with a collaboration between Honky Tonk Heroes, a weekly concert series in Huntington and Old Soul Radio Show. The show was a small, intimate gathering with prominent musicians and members of the local music scene in the audience.
Sunday night’s show, which will be released as four separate episodes of his podcast, consisted of an introduction for each performer by Walker, followed by a full-length performance from each artist. The lineup included Matt Mullins, Cody Lee Moomey, Eric Bolander and Travis Napier.
On Aug. 27, Old Soul Radio show will be hosting a ticketed live show at the Loud in Huntington, which will also serve as an album release party for a new album from Travis Napier.
“I try to do at least one live ticketed show a year,” said Walker.
Other than the ticketed live shows, Walker says “not much has changed” about the podcast. The format for his normal episodes has remained focused around reviewing two to three albums by locally-based artists.
“When I first started, we didn’t have the Barn & Grill,” Walker said, referring to W.B. Walker’s Barn & Grill, a modular storage building Walker has outfitted into a museum-meets-recording studio at his home in Dingess. “That’s where I do my home recording live shows.”
“Any time a musician wants to come over to my place, they’ll come over, I’ll record them, I’ll put it out as fast as I get them.”
Listen to the full catalog of W.B. Walker’s Old Soul Radio Show at wbwalker.com and catch his next live ticketed show at the Loud in Huntington on Aug. 27. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the show starts at 6 p.m.