Soul Singer Charles “Wigg” Walker to Release New Album “This Love Is Gonna Last” on January 24th, 2025 | LISTEN!
Octogenarian Soul Singer Charles “Wigg” Walker
Announces First Album in Over a Decade
This Love Is Gonna Last
Out January 24
Blissful New Single “(Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way”
Revels in a Bright Future
Oct. 31, 2024 – Today, Nashville-based soul singer Charles “Wigg” Walker has announced This Love Is Gonna Last, his first new album in over a decade, due out January 24. Nearly 70 years into his remarkable career, Walker returns with a masterclass collection of timeless R&B about love, trust and commitment. Along with the announcement, Walker shares his new single “(Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way,” a blissful slice of optimism that looks toward a brighter future.
“This song sums up this whole album for me really,” says Walker about the new single. “After all the places I’ve been and all the bands I’ve performed with and all the recordings I’ve made, it feels like things are finally starting to come my way.”
Recorded with longtime organist and creative partner Charles Treadway, This Love Is Gonna Last shifts seamlessly between definitive eras of soul as it bounces from Philly and Detroit to Memphis and more. The album’s rich arrangements are owed to Walker’s chemistry with its core trio – Treadway, guitarist Pat Bergeson (Chet Atkins, Lyle Lovett), and drummer Pete Abbott (Average White Band, Tom Jones). Despite the record’s joyful presentation, there’s an insightful recognition of time’s inexorable march and the lessons and losses that come with it. This Love Is Gonna Last is a dedication to Walker’s late wife, who passed away earlier this year. The result is the kind of album he’s been building towards for his entire career, a showcase not only for his unforgettable vocals but also for the unparalleled emotional range that’s defined his work for more than half a century.
This Love Is Gonna Last marks Walker’s first release since his time fronting The Dynamites in the early 2010s. Over the course of three albums, the deep funk group introduced Walker’s “hard-won soul singing” (American Songwriter) to a new generation, with NPR deeming them as “a celebration of resurrection.”
Walker has packed several musical lifetimes into his lauded career. After releasing his first single on Ted Jarrett’s trailblazing Champion Records, he moved from Nashville to New York where he became a frontman for the J.C. Davis Band, sharing bills with the likes of James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. Walker’s first own group Little Charles and the Sidewinders became a staple of the New York nightclub scene in the 1960s and would go on to record for Chess and Decca Records. After more than a decade on the road, Walker took a staff writing role for Motown in the ’70s before eventually moving to Europe in the ’80s, where he continued to find enthusiastic audiences. The blues and R&B revival of the ’90s ultimately brought Walker back home to Nashville.
Now, with his unflagging faith and dedication as the bedrock of This Love Is Gonna Last, Walker may finally be getting his due. “I feel more appreciated now than ever,” he says. “There’s something different about this album. It just feels right.”
Photo Credit: David McClister
This Love Is Gonna Last Tracklist
1. This Love Is Gonna Last
2. Whatever It Is
3. (Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way
4. Midnight Rendezvous
5. Serendipity
6. If I Had Known
7. I Like ‘Em Like That
8. That Kind of Love
9. It’s About Trust
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