ALBUM REVIEW: Charles “Wigg” Walker’s ‘This Love is Gonna Last’ Makes You Believe it Will
Nick Cristiano
Posted On January 22, 2025
The last we heard Charles “Wigg” Walker on record was more than a decade ago, when he fronted the Dynamites, a soul and funk outfit whose big, horn-infused attack can only be described as explosive. Walker was nevertheless a commanding presence, his grit and power reflecting the strengths developed over a decades-long career that saw him sharing stages with the likes of James Brown, Etta James, and Otis Redding as he moved from the States to Europe and back to his native Nashville.
Now, at 84, Walker has returned with This Love Is Gonna Last, on which he teams with an old Dynamites mate, keyboardist Charles Treadway, who co-produced and cowrote most of the material with Walker (and friend Eric Pittarelli).
Right off the bat, it’s clear they are trying to expand on their old approach. The title track begins the album with a lush, strings- and horn-accented arrangement (strings figure heavily on the nine-song set) that recalls the shimmering Philly soul of Gamble and Huff. In other words, it’s more silky than sweaty, but Walker pushes against it with an understated vocal that builds in fervor toward the finish, making the declaration of the title all the more convincing.
A similar uptown approach also characterizes numbers such as the buoyant “(Feels Like) Things Are Comin’ Our Way”; “Serendipity,” which begins with an old-school recitation; “That Kind of Love,” in which Walker’s gentle vocals deliver some down-home wisdom; and the hushed, seductive “Midnight Rendezvous.”
“If I Had Known” is a reflective ballad that takes a country-soul turn, with a lyrical guitar solo by Pat Bergeson that mirrors the aching regret that Walker builds to in a majestically poignant finish.
Some of that old Dynamites-style fire returns on “I Like It Like That,” a slab of swaggering, horn-driven R&B that could have come out of Stax, and shows that Walker’s voice, while it can be supple and sweet, is as robustly forceful as ever, and “Whatever It Is” ramps up the funk as Walker pleads, “Please don’t push me away … we can make it.”
This Love Is Gonna Last is dedicated to Walker’s wife, Marva, who died last year. You can read some of these songs as reflective of their relationship, but you don’t need to know that backstory to feel the spectrum of emotions that this consummate soul man so sublimely conveys.
Charles “Wigg” Walker’s This Love Is Gonna Last is out Jan. 24 via Missing Piece.
