22 August 17-23, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Feathers, Furs and Freedom Joshua Ray Walker reclaims his narrative with a new album of female pop covers. BY POPPY XANDER O n the surface, the new Joshua Ray Walker album, What Is It Even?, is a light-hearted and fun-loving collection of pop songs. But behind the blond- haired, blue-eyed, pink-fur-wrapped por- trait that adorns the album’s cover is a common story: the universal struggle and desire to be seen for who you are. The idea behind the fourth studio release from the Dallas native country crooner came as a surprise to many fans, with a concept that didn’t sit well with some: a cover album composed of pop songs by female artists. When the first single hit the market in June 2023, new fans and faithful veterans got to gush to Walker’s voice belting out “Cuz I Love You,” the Lizzo banger from her first full-length album. Magic happened at Modern Electric Stu- dio in Dallas when Walker and his team turned the tune into a sultry, down-tempo track, loaded with a stacked horn section and a king-size bed of a Hammond organ. Confidence didn’t come overnight for the East Dallas native. At the age of 13, Walker al- ready stood 6 feet tall and towered over his peers. Even then, he was thought of as differ- ent. Around the same time, he began growing his hair long and would often get mistaken for a woman or addressed as “ma’am,” some- thing that caused the young musician to feel embarrassed and disheartened. It was in the quiet spaces, between thrashing around in punk and metal bands and trying to find footing in the societal norms of adolescence, that Walker sought reprieve in the works of Cat Power, Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor. Up to that point, Walker had interpreted the voice as a me- lodic instrument but had never considered lyrical content as an artform. It’s why Regina Spektor’s song “Samson,” made the cut. When recording the track, Walker had to “go to another place,” he says, to evoke the delicate and vulnerable candor of Spektor’s raw, heartfelt lyrics. “Giving that kind of performance in front of your peers is a weird experience,” the singer says, referring to bandmates Chad Stockslager on piano and producer John Pedigo in the sound booth. The transformations that have taken place in Walker’s ongoing journey of creat- ing authentic art and refusing to give way completely to the traditional country music genre or to compromise his stylistic choices to become anyone’s torch bearer have been well documented. “I still don’t really consider myself a vo- calist or a singer,” Walker says. That sentiment is hard to sympathize with after hearing his barn-burning blue- grass rendition of Beyoncé’s “Halo,” a song that Walker finds to be a perfect preshow warm-up because of its wide vocal range. The masterful crooning Walker pulls off in the cover of LeAnn Rimes’ “Blue” is a testa- ment to the dedication he’s put into his voice over the years, complemented perfectly by Stockslager’s honky tonk piano and the pedal steel of Adam Kurtz. The album also includes a recorder solo in “Linger,” per- formed by Kyle Gass of Tenacious D. Other highlights include Cher’s “Be- lieve,” a common time shuffle that is des- tined to be a two-step favorite in honky tonks far and wide. The dark country ballad of “Joshua” by Dolly Parton is an excellent balance to the upbeat cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Some- body” and the timely tribute to Sinéad O’Connor in “Nothing Compares 2 U.” One way to tell if a song is well-written is when it can be “reinterpreted in a number of ways and still be good,” Walker says. This is what the team was looking for when they narrowed a list from 50 songs down to the 11 that made the record, songs that could cross over and work with the band. A perfect example is the Latin groove used for Sia’s “Cheap Thrills,” a tune that propels Walker right into the first-person narrative of putting on makeup and high heels before hitting the dance floor. But Walker acknowledges that it’s taken him a long time to address the insecurities of his youth around being seen by others as feminine and how, for a long time, they car- ried over into adulthood. Some of that was highlighted after Walker’s performance of the national anthem at Formula 1, in October 2021, which took place in front of a live audi- ence of 400,000 and an international televi- sion viewing audience of 90 million people. Walker expected the usual criticisms that large-scale events tend to attach to singers’ performances, usually about the quality of their voice, weight or appearance. What Walker didn’t expect was a com- ment about, “America being so woke it would have a trans woman singing the national an- them.” After the comment went viral, a string of anti-trans rhetoric surrounded the perfor- mance, and the trans community came to the defense of the singer. “I didn’t really know how to handle it. I’m a cisgender heterosexual male and this is something that has been happening to me my whole life,” Walker says. Walker’s response felt akin to the Anderson Cooper interview with Lady Gaga in which Cooper asked if there were any truth to the ru- mor that Gaga has a “male appendage” and is a “hermaphrodite.” Gaga replied, “Why the hell am I going to waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don’t care and neither do I.” The traditional and outlaw country music fans who make up a bulk of Walker’s fanbase might feel differently, but Walker doesn’t seem to care. Ultimately, Walker believes the more im- portant story is the one about trans youth wanting to be acknowledged as a gender that society says they aren’t allowed to be. “I’m an ally, and that’s the story that mat- ters,” Walker says. “I don’t want my struggle to be seen as equal to the much more diffi- cult struggle that trans kids are having to go through.” Shortly after Walker’s performance, someone commented on the national an- them video with four little words: “What is it even?” Walker confessed that people were so confused about “whether he was a man or woman” that he decided to name the record after the comment, lean into the visuals and what society views as feminine tropes, throw on feathers, fur and sparkles, and re- claim the conversation around his own gen- der and the misgendering that hurt him so much in the past. “It took a lot of time,” Walker says. “That’s really the reason for the record and the message I wanted to share.” David McClister | B-SIDES | t Music Joshua Ray Walker is owning his love of female musicians with his cover album, What Is It Even? since 1978! 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