Win Tickets to See Honky Tonk Singer Joshua Ray Walker at Chickie Wah Wah

Joshua Ray Walker

The Dallas-based country singer will play New Orleans on Wednesday, March 22, and we have two pairs of tickets to give away.

On Wednesday, March 22, Americana singer Joshua Ray Walker will play Chickie Wah Wah, and we have two pairs of tickets to give away to the show. Register here for a chance to win.

As 2021’s See You Next Time demonstrates, Walker sings country music for people who like it the way it used to be. The twang, fiddles and pedal steel that Nashville tries to bury these days figure prominently in his sound, and the working class sensibility that once defined country music is far more present than its current suburban undertone.

The album concludes a trilogy that collectively revolve around the last night of fictional honky tonk, telling the stories of the customers and people who worked there. Walker didn’t reveal that until the third album was out—he didn’t want to scare off fans of a genre not known for its concept albums—but the idea hints at how well-observed and thought-out his songs are. In “Working Girl,” he sings,  “A hard living sure ain’t easy / Easy living’s even harder / So please just come and take me / I don’t want to be a martyr.”

Walker’s presentation invites you to see him as a confrontation to country music, but in the ways that matter, he’s a pure product from Dallas, the son of a truck driver who started writing country music when he was 19, talking to people he met traveling with his dad or singing. His voice is country through and through, as capable of tender empathy as rowdy good times.

That said, the “Sexy After Dark” video suggests that Walker is right on time as it envisions a more expansive, inclusive vision of country music than legislators in Tennessee or Texas embrace right now. “If other people think that I am an ally for them because I am dressed that way, because I have unicorns on my denim vest or whatever, then that’s awesome,” Walker told Grammy.com. “I want everybody to feel safe and included and totally welcome at my shows, to feel supported by me as a person, as an artist.”

Tickets for Walker are on sale now ($18 in advance, $25 day of show), but we’re giving away two pairs. The contest closes Tuesday, March 21 at 6 p.m. Central.