Recorded in Victoria over two days in early 2022, Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky features long-time bandmates and creative collaborators Garrett Costigan on pedal steel; Michael Vidale on bass; Hamish Stuart on drums and the late, great guitarist Roydon Payne, to whom Walker has dedicated the album. They were joined on backing vocals by the Harmonettes, Amanda Roff, Erica Dunn and Brigitte Hart. A solo effort as deep as the ocean and as dark as the night, with big bright flashes of musical lightning. It’s wondrous and tragic. It’s melancholic. It’s reflective. It’s dirty and bluesy and blue. Honest as a bee sting.
Internationally acclaimed author, Trent Dalton, says it best, “The man’s music lives in me like myth. It resides in the same place in my brain where Buddy Holly’s last flight lives; or John’s big bite of Yoko’s apple; or Robert Johnson’s great Delta devil deal. Rosaline. Breakfast at Sweethearts. Standing on the Outside. Choirgirl. Saturday Night. Who needs that sentimental bullshit? Me. We. He. She. They. Them. Us. Always.
“And now all this new stuff. And now all this new lightning.
“‘I’ve got the song we’ll need to live,’ he sings on the very first line of the very first song. Turns out he’s got a whole album of them. Every one of them nourishing and sustaining; restorative and resurrective. He’s been listening again. And now, for the first time in years – like a fork of white lightning charged to split through your clear blue sky – the incomparable Don Walker is about to speak.”
Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky is available to pre-order now either alone or via bundles on Limited Edition Double Vinyl, CD and Digital from donwalker.com.au/store.
The vinyl offers a limited bonus disc which includes the songs 1-7 recorded again by Phil Punch at Electric Avenue Studios, Sydney, mixed live directly to a Studer C37 customised for 1″ stereo tape. First introduced in 1960, the Studer C37 quickly became the benchmark in recording and is still, some 63 years later, considered the definitive way to record music to tape.
The first single from the album, a bluesy ode to motion, You’ve Got to Move, is available to stream now from here. The album’s title track, Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky, is also available.
Mr Walker has confirmed a run of dates in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria through May and June 2023 plus performances at Blues on Broadbeach on 21 May and the Gympie Music Musteron 24 August. See below for full dates.
Fanclub members can secure tickets for the ‘Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky’ Tour first during the exclusive pre-sale from 9.00am Tuesday, 7 March until 9am Friday, 10 March (local times). Sign up to the Fanclub HERE.
GA tickets go on sale at 9.00am (local times) on Friday, 10 March from donwalker.com.au/live.
Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky is released on Friday, 5 May 2023 via MGM
Saturday, 20 May – Old Museum, Brisbane QLD
Friday, 16 June – Factory Theatre, Sydney NSW
Saturday, 17 June – Bowral Bowling Club, Bowral NSW
Friday, 23 June – Sooki Lounge, Belgrave VIC
Saturday, 24 June – Memo Music Hall, St Kilda VICAlso appearing at:
Saturday, 26 August – Gympie Music Muster, QLD
Sunday, 21 May – Blues on Broadbeach, QLD
Saturday, 26 August – Gympie Music Muster, QLD