K&K's Artist of the Month: Todd Walker
December 2002
"I'm
a 52 year old singer/songwriter who got lost for about 13 years while
raising a family and trying to make my way financially from kids diapers
to the teen years. I had performed acoustic music from the early 70's
until the late 80's playing cover tunes of James Taylor, Beatles, Paul
Simon, Jim Croce, Eagles, etc....all the "great" songsters. By the time
my kids were born I'd burned out from too many smoke filled bars and late
night drinkers asking for "Freebird" while they held up the mic stand.
So I put my guitar under the bed, where it stayed until 1999.
What got me to dust off the guitar was the night I took my two sons to see/hear Livingston Taylor. Not only is LT super (one of the best showman in acoustic music), but he had a young folk singer named Christopher Williams open for him who was equally fantastic. While enjoying their music I realized that I used to have just as much fun as they were having, so when I got home I dusted off the guitar case and resurrected my love for the acoustic guitar...only this time around I decided to write my own songs.
I'm currently working on my first full-length CD during my spare time while I actively collect mid to high end acoustic guitars, just about all of which I've installed K & K acoustic pickups in (you folks make me sound good). I perform weekly at David Morreale's Sunday Night Songwriter Series at the Frederick Coffee Company here in Frederick, MD, and I occasionally perform as a warm-up act for traveling performers (most recently for Sam Shaber during her East Coast tour).
Due to a heavy day job work schedule my performing is somewhat limited, but I perform as often as time allows...always with enthusiasm, loving every second. As a result of other performers hearing my K & K amplified guitars, I have happened into a part-time business selling and installing K & K acoustic pickups.
My website should be up and running sometime in early 2003, and I have a two-song "Todd C. Walker - Studio Live" sampler CD that seems to be quite popular, even getting me some radio airplay in the Netherlands. My music is in the "new folk" category, ranging from folk/pop to ballads...songs that I refer to as "recipes of life" and "stories to be told". Although I'm just a mediocre guitarist, I do get satisfaction from percussive strumming and rythmic fingerpicking (bare fingers all the way), while occasionally using a flat pick for my pop tunes.
In addition to selling new homes to pay the bills, I enjoy doing television on the side. I've just recently completed taping my 9th season of "Dining Out", a weekly show where I go into the kitchen of fine restaurants and interview the chef while he/she cooks for me. As you can imagine, I get to sample some wonderful food. During the 70's and early 80's you would have seen me in numerous regional and national print ads (modeling everything from clothes to computers) and in television commercials (Coca-Cola, Roman Meal bread, Nissan Motors, etc.). In the early 90's I was the co-host of "Nostalgia Watch" on the national Nostalgia cable channel (now defunct).
Although I envy young songwriters'/performers' youth, I'm happy that I re-discovered my passion for acoustic music while I'm young-at-heart, and I thank Marler Guitars, Breedlove Guitars, Alvarez-Yairi Guitars, Lawrence Nyberg Guitars, Harvey Leach Guitars and most importantly K & K Sound for making me sound "so good" on stage. And a special thanks goes to Gray Burchette of Burchette Guitars who turned me on to K & K products in the first place."
Todd is the proud owner of 10 K&K Pure and Trinity Pickup Systems and has this to say about them: "Until [I found out] about K&K pickups, I was lost in the world of "almost sounding good" pickups. Every guitarist who hears one of my K&K amplified acoustic guitars asks me how I get such a big, open and natural sound from my guitars. My good friend David Morreale (also a performing songwriter) told me after one song that 'no guitar should sound that good'."
Contact Todd Walker at Outerbeach10@aol.com