Blue Shuswap Waters b/w My Baby's Crazy About Me

Walter ‘Wally’ Walklin was a country singer, guitarist and songwriter from the Vernon, British Columbia area who recorded a small but distinctive body of work during the 1960s. He grew up at Swan Lake, immediately north of Vernon, and his surviving recordings combined traditional country standards with original songs rooted in his family life and the landscapes of British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

Walklin’s children included Shelley and Sheldon Walklin. His original composition ‘Shelley’ was written for his daughter, while Sheldon later helped preserve and circulate recordings from his father’s catalogue.

Walklin’s earliest known release, Wally Walklin Sings, was issued on the small Canadian Pink Pearl label in 1964. Recorded by K & W Recording Company, the album featured Walklin singing and accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Its repertoire placed him firmly within the traditional country and honky-tonk field, with interpretations of songs associated with Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Webb Pierce, the Louvin Brothers and other major country performers.

Alongside these standards, the album included three original Walklin compositions: ‘Shelley,’ ‘Lonesome for Love’ and ‘Bad Luck Bad Love Bad Taste.’

In 1967, Walklin released ‘Blue Shuswap Waters’ b/w ‘My Baby’s Crazy About Me’ on the Sound 67 label. The regional title reflected his close association with the North Okanagan and the Shuswap country surrounding Vernon, connecting his music directly with the landscape in which he had grown up.

Walklin subsequently recorded the album It’s All Country, released on Point Records as P-332. The album was listed in the July 20, 1968 issue of RPM, confirming that it was in circulation by the summer of 1968. Known selections from the album include ‘There’s a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere,’ ‘Annapolis Valley,’ ‘Chime Bells,’ ‘Yo-Yo’ and ‘Muleskinner Blues.’

‘Annapolis Valley’ drew directly upon Walklin’s years in Nova Scotia. From 1958 until 1963, he was stationed at CFB Greenwood, where he worked as an electrical technician on the Canadair CP-107 Argus aircraft. Located in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, Greenwood provided the setting and inspiration for the song. A surviving recording of ‘Annapolis Valley’ was later preserved online by his son Sheldon Walklin.

Although much of Walklin’s performing history remains undocumented, his surviving records reveal a regional Canadian country artist whose music connected the North Okanagan, the Shuswap and Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. His combination of familiar country standards, autobiographical songwriting and locally inspired material makes his small recorded catalogue an important surviving document of independent British Columbia country music during the 1960s.

-Robert Williston