Among those searching for a "new
Dylan" (a phrase seemingly applied to every male singer/songwriter who has come along since
Bob Dylan arrived in Greenwich Village in 1961), the adherents to the topical songwriting movement of the early '60s must be the most fervent.
Dylan -- then thought of as a sort of "new
Woody Guthrie" -- served their interests faithfully from about 1962, when he started writing songs in earnest, to about 1964, when he began to turn away from topical writing. Others in the same vein, such as
Phil Ochs and
Tom Paxton, never had quite the same impact. A decade later,
Ochs, in association with Broadside, the topical folksong magazine run by
Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and
Gordon Friesen, "presents" 22-year-old
Sammy Walker, who seems to have been fashioned, or to have fashioned himself, deliberately as the new
Dylan the political folkies had been looking for.
Walker, a native of Norcross, GA, fingerpicks an acoustic guitar and blows familiar harmonica interludes in his songs, which he sings in a voice uncannily like that of the
Dylan of the LPs
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and
The Times They Are A-Changin'. And starting with the album's title song, concerning Patty Hearst, he addresses political and social issues from a left-wing stance. When he turns personal, as on "My Old Yearbook," he sounds a bit more like
John Prine than
Dylan, but his humorous song "Funny Farm Blues" could be one of
Dylan's talking blues songs. He evokes his primary inspiration on "Ragamuffin Minstrel Boy," but also harks back to
Guthrie on "I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore" (on which
Ochs and
Cunningham sing along) and pays tribute to his sponsor on
Ochs' "Bound for Glory" (which is, of course,
Ochs' tribute to
Guthrie, and on which he again sings harmony).
Walker is thus steeped in a noble tradition, and he is nobly trying to extend it into the middle of the '70s. But for many listeners, he will seem an imitation of
Dylan (whom he also seems to resemble in appearance, from the photograph on the back cover), and that may be a distraction.