Ronnie Walker

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• О себе:Ronnie Walker was born in Philadelphia and, although not from a musical family as such, he recalled his mother having a beautiful voice. “She was really my principal singing influence,” he said. “Just her walking around the house, she would sing. She would sing a lot of gospel but I’d listen to most types of music. I sang in elementary school and I sang in church too of course. I was aware that I could sing but did not really think too much about it as far as an aspiring career was concerned. While in school, they wanted to do the shows and they lined us all up and they played notes on the piano. And I sang the notes that they played on the piano and they said, okay, you’re in!” Ronnie got his break into the business in the latter half of his teens, when he was introduced to local Philly producer, Phil Gaber. He advised: “I was working on my singing one day and this girl was round at the house. She liked the way I sounded and she said, I know this guy - that was Phil Gaber - and she called him up and a few days later he was over to hear me sing. I’m not really sure exactly how old I was but, when he brought a contract, my mother had to sign it because I was too young to sign it.” The contract referred to named Gaber as his manager/producer and a glance at the accompanying discography will show that Ronnie has been something of a label-hopper in his day, the reason being that he has never been directly contracted to a record company. Instead, the norm was for him to record with Gaber, who would then shop around for a label deal. “With so many record companies, if you didn’t have a smash hit first time they didn’t want to see you again,” said Ronnie. “That’s why I never stayed long in any one place.” Phil Gaber also recognised Ronnie’s talents as a burgeoning songwriter... “I was just writing songs but they weren’t going anywhere, just writing what I heard in my head.” Asked if songwriting came easy, Ronnie replied with a laugh: “Well, my kind of songwriting did! It might not always have been too commercial but it’s what I heard. But Phil put me to write with Glenn Williams. He was Nemo’s brother, one of the singers in the Agents. Our collaborations were very much a pooling of ideas but usually I’d come up with the melodies.” Together, they wrote both sides of the Agents’ second 45, ‘Trouble’ c/w ‘The Love I Hold’, released on the Liberty Bell label. Ronnie’s own version of ‘Trouble’ existed only as an unreleased acetate until finally issued in late 2000 (with the also previously commercially unavailable ‘Why Did You’ as the flip). It was recorded at Impact Sound in Philadelphia in August 1966, while two further Walker/Williams’ numbers, recorded at the same place and time, became his debut 45, leased to Bell Records. Coupling the mellow ballad, ‘I’m Sayin’ Goodbye’ and the more upbeat ‘My Baby Doesn’t Love Me Anymore’ - both backed by girls dubbed the Femm-ells - the world was introduced to the Walker falsetto for the first time. “Well,” laughed Ronnie, “now, here’s a thing. People always call it falsetto but I can’t really understand that because, when I’m singing, it comes out of me naturally.” Ronnie had clearly recognised one of the definitions of ‘falsetto’ contained in the Oxford English Dictionary which describes the word as being a diminutive of the Italian ‘falso’, meaning false. He continued: “I guess I’d prefer to call it a high tenor, I don’t know. But I have rather a large range, so I can go from a very low to a very high. I’ve done that on record but it seems that most people have listened more to the things I have done in the upper ranges Whatever Ronnie chooses to call it, experts in the soul music field have been happy to place the Walker voice on the same shelf as the likes of Smokey Robinson, Curtis Mayfield and Eddie Holman but, regrettably, he could not match their successes, despite fine outings such as his next two releases which appeared on the Philips label. ‘Really Re
• День рождения:1.5
• Сейчас живёт в:Philadelphia
• Родной город:Philadelphia