Don Walker is one of Australia¹s most respected and successful songwriter/musicians.

As a member of and main songwriter for Cold Chisel between 1973 and 1993 Don wrote "Saturday Night", "Cheap Wine", "Standing on the Outside", "Four Walls", "Khe Sahn" along with many others, and co-wrote "Flame Trees" with drummer Steve Prestwich. Don also wrote and produced the soundtrack for the Scott Hicks movie "Freedom" in 1981,which featured Cold Chisel and then unknown INXS singer Michael Hutchence.

IN 1989, after a break from music spent travelling, Don released "Unlimited Address", a set of songs under the band name Catfish, recorded with producer/guitar player Peter Walker and harmonica player David Blight. As a touring band Catfish also included guitar player Charlie Owen.
In 1991 the second Catfish album, "Ruby", was released, recorded with James Brown¹s rhythm section of drummer Tony Cook and guitar player Ron Laster.
Slim Dusty had a hit with his version of Catfish song "Charleville", which he then invited Don to re-record as a duet.

In 1993 the Tex, Don and Charlie album, "Sad But True" was released in Australia and Europe. A collaboration with Tex Perkins and Charlie Owen, "Sad But True" showed the first results of the songwriting Walker had been doing in Nashville the previous two years. Tex, Don and Charlie toured, recording and releasing live album "Monday Morning Coming Down".

In 1994 Don Walker recorded his first solo album "We¹re All Gunna Die" over four days at Electric Avenue Studios in Sydney with touring band featuring David Blight and Red Rivers on guitar. Released in 1995, it was received as a "masterpiece" and " possibly the best Australian album in years".
Plans for the follow ­up album were put on the backburner when Don agreed to work on a Cold Chisel reunion in 1996. That same year Origin Records re-released the Freedom soundtrack.

In 1998 Cold Chisel released the first studio album for fifteen years entitled "The Last Wave of Summer" which entered the national charts in the top position, and followed it up with a 22 date national tour.

In recent years, while writing the follow-up to "We¹re All Gunna Die", Walker has appeared live occasionally with Charlie Owen and Garret Costigan. He has written songs for country singer Adam Brand¹s album "Good Friends" and wrote the title song for Slim Dusty¹s new album (his hundredth), "Looking Forward, Looking Back". Don has also been collecting songs for a planned recording of sacred music with Louis Tillet in St Canice¹s church in King¹s Cross, Sydney.

IN November Don Walker will be touring and will feature Red Rivers on guitar. Red originally played on "We¹re All Gunna Die" and has built quite an international reputation of his own as a songwriter , singer and guitar player. He has released three highly acclaimed albums with his band The Rocketones, and two of his songs appear on Charlie Musselwhite¹s Grammy nominated album "Rough News".

With a sense of humour shaped from his own life experiences, Don successfully interprets this into a sometimes interchangeable blues, country, musical style. Along with this and a marked skill for storytelling, he has created his own brand of Don Walker theatre.

Don¹s touring band will feature: Red Rivers on Guitar, Garret Costigan onPedal steel, Angus Diggs onDrums, and Paul Burton on Double Bass

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Last Updated Wed, May 15, 2002