If the first attention-grabbing horn lines of The Dynamites album Kaboom! evoke a dramatic curtain call from a late ‘60s funk concert at the Apollo Theater, it’s no accident. After all, that’s exactly where Charles Walker, the band’s singer and front man, first cut his teeth as a performer. When the revolutionary ‘new bag’ now known as funk first made the scene, Walker was right there in the thick of it, opening for the likes of James Brown, Etta James, and Wilson Pickett, and imbibing himself in a cultural movement’s genesis.

Walker deserves his due after decades as an unsung musical hero. He first became a professional entertainer in his native Nashville in the late 1950s, recording with hit producer Ted Jarrett and appearing nightly at the New Era Club, one of the South’s leading black nightclubs. Walker spent most of the 1960s and ‘70s in New York, performing frequently at the Apollo Theater and Small’s Paradise when the original funk scene coalesced. Fronting various bands, including the criminally underrated Little Charles & the Sidewinders, Walker released singles for Chess, Decca, and a number of smaller labels. The records failed to hit the big time but their quality endured and are now prized among collectors. After the recordings gained notice in Europe’s Northern Soul scene, Walker found steady solo work overseas, and he lived in England and Spain before returning to Music City in the 1990s.

"Listening to Charles Walker & The Dynamites immediately whisked me back to Small's Paradise,1964. It's so wonderful to hear Charles' voice is as strong as ever." - Bettye LaVette