Believe me folks, this is the real thing. Mike Elias - Chord magazine (US) This is as good as it gets. Heikki Suasalo - Soul Express (FIN) I would have been proud to release this recording. Quinton Claunch, co-owner of Goldwax Records (US) The year's best deep-soul album...Howard Tate, your comeback ass has just been kicked. Dylan Hicks - Village Voice (US)

Hailing from Memphis, former Goldwax soul legend Willie Walker started singing gospel with the Redemption Harmonizers when he was still a teenager. By the time he was 20 he's relocated to Minneapolis, but the move up the Mississippi did nothing to curtail his musical activities. Flying back to Memphis for sessions at American Studios (as well as Muscle Shoals). He released a string of stirring deep soul classics on Goldwax Records during the late '60s. Being label mates with soul royalty like O.V. Wright and James Carr was fitting for Walker because, as Right Where I Belong proves, he was talented enough to walk in their footsteps.The circumstances that led to Right Where I Belong developed over a period years as Willie gigged off and on with Minneapolis blues-cum-soul band the Butanes. The results are stunning: rarely does a record not only successfully reproduce a beloved style without sounding dated, but actually adds to the genre that has influenced it.

For Walker, it might just be like putting on an old hat, but Butanes guitarist Curt Obeda deserves accolades as well. He penned every song here, and tunes like (We Gotta) Put Out The Fire and Crying To Do are as tastefully understated as his guitar playing, while the arrangements, instrumentation, and recording resonate with a natural warmth. For his part, Walker delivers heartbreak, hope, loneliness, joy, and loss with emotion.This record is so top notch that no purist will be able to tell the difference between it and a long lost reel of Goldwax tape. Amen

Michael Hurtt - Living Blues (US)

This is it! The real deal. The goods. Several former Goldwax artists such as James Carr and Percy Milem have resurfaced in the last twenty years to make new recordings and though they each displayed some considerable merit, the results were often patchy. This time it's the turn of yet another artist in the timeless 'Southern Soul' tradition, Willie Walker. Only one of Walker's fine Goldwax recordings from 1968 actually appeared on the Memphis label, two others were leased to Chess, appearing on their Checker label.

This CD, recorded in Minneapolis, is a truly wonderful listening experience. Yes, there are a few modest nods in the direction of the new millennium, but what you will hear when (not if!) you purchase this minor masterpiece is a perfect fusion of the different strands of 'The Memphis Sound' as honed to perfection by Stax, Goldwax and Hi. Much of the credit for this lies in the truly wonderful support provided by the Butanes, led by a marvellously empathetic and inventive guitarist called Curtis Obeda. Curtis wrote, produced and arranged this entire CD with drum, horn, guitar and organ charts that easily contend with the best I?e ever heard in (gasp) over forty years of listening to 'real' soul and R&B. You will hardly believe your ears as your own personal laser beam converts those little digital signals into music. Yes, music. Real soul music.

Steve Armitage - Blues & Rhythm magazine (UK)