An Afternoon Delight: Ryley Walker Live at West Fest

Chicago – It was a beautiful, breezy afternoon, perfect for Chicagoans’ favorite summer past time: strolling through street festivals. Just about every weekend throughout the warmer months, you can saunter through a mesh of beer and food tents – featuring fried anything and everything – and catch live music in some corner of the city. This past Sunday afternoon, people were walking their dogs, drinking brewskis, and eating fried Twinkies at West Fest. Over at The Empty Bottle Stage, everyone was enjoying an afternoon delight with the enchanting psych-folk of Chicago-based Ryley Walker.

The twenty-four year-old has been praised for his musical maturity and compared to his heroes Tim Buckley and Bert Jansch; indeed, his sound takes you back in time. He vigorously brings to life a genre rooted in the 60s and 70s, but still appreciated by many music lovers today. Critics praised his 2013 EPThe West Wind for his skillful finger-style guitar playing, vivid songwriting, and powerful voice. Still fresh off the release of his 2014 debut LP All Kinds of You, Walker has been touring at home and abroad. Surprisingly though, he’s also been recording new material – that he has described as more jazz based – and playing plenty of it on the road. Walker performed a handful of unreleased songs at West Fest, like “Love Can Be Cruel,” as well as older songs, like “The West Wind.”

Walker and his band casually walked onto stage, welcomed by whistles and cheers from the crowd. The trio began their afternoon set with the sweet and tranquil “Primrose Green.” Throughout his set, Walker cracked jokes and often waved to random people while calling out, “Aye man!” His banter was on par with his heartfelt tunes- enjoyable and appreciated- and laughter was abundant between songs. While Ryley introduced his backup band, he teased his guitarist Brian Sulpizio, pointing to him and saying, “We got back from Sweden yesterday and got into the biggest fight, but we’re friends now, right Brian?” Sulpizio nodded yes. Walker laughed and exclaimed, “Good answer!” When he introduced his piano player Ben Boye, he joked, “We have no beef at all.”

Ryley Walker and his band played the mellow “Sweet Satisfaction” and the sultry “Summer Dress.” The standout of the afternoon, however, was “On the Banks of the Old Kishwaukee.” People could be seen moving their bodies to the music, smiles and eyes wide, focused on Walker’s magic fingers plucking the guitar with precision. His impeccable voice left many shaking their heads as if to silently declare, “Yes, yes, yes!”

Walker ended his majestic set by himself, with the instrumental “Griffith Bucks Blues,” gently strumming his guitar, showing off what NPR dubbed as his “acoustic swagger.” Emotion seemed to fill him as his head rocked, blowing his bushy mane out. Before leaving the stage, he sang a soulful “thank you.”

Ryley Walker is currently touring the States and will be playing throughout Europe in the fall. Click here for tour dates. You can download his music through iTunes or purchase some vinyl via Tompkins Square.

(Photos by Sarah Hess: smhimaging.com)

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Sarah Hess

At the age of six, Sarah Hess discovered True Blue by Madonna. This resulted in her spending hours in front of the bathroom mirror with a hairbrush microphone, belting out "La Isla Bonita" off key. Her love for music only intensified over the years thanks to her parents; her mother exposed Sarah to The Jackson Five and had her hustling to the Bee Gees, while her father would play her albums like 'Pet Sounds' and 'Some Girls' from start to finish, during which he'd lecture on and on about the history of rock & roll. Sarah would eventually stumble upon rap and hip-hop, then punk and alternative, and fall madly in love with Jeff Buckley and film photography.

After attending The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Sarah went on to study education at Dominican University, earning a degree in history. When not teaching, writing, or taking in a show, she is most likely to be found with a camera to her eye or hanging out in a darkroom.

You can follow Sarah Hess on twitter at @Sarahhasanh and view her music photography on her website: smhimaging.com.