ArtistInfo

Jeff Walker

US

A.k.a. Jeffrey Barnett Walker

Since 1980, Jeff Walker is President and Owner, Jeffrey B. Walker, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA, USA. After moving from NY to LA in the early 70's, Jeff Walker worked as both a music journalist and publicist. He was an editor at Crawdaddy, Music World and Feature magazines and wrote for Rolling Stone, Penthouse, Phonograph Record Magazine, Billboard, Cashbox, Waxpaper, Circular, FolkScene and Coast Magazine. Jeff interviewed many artists, including Gram Parsons, EmmyLou Harris, Tom Waits, Richie Furay, Michael Nesmith, Loggins & Messina, Rick Wakeman, Bonnie Raitt, Colin Blunstone, David Essex and Nick Lowe as well as contributing the liner notes to the classic soundtrack album for American Graffiti. In early 1972, Jeff became the first alternative press rep for the venerable public relations firm Rogers, Cowan & Brenner. His first campaigns were for Jim Croce, The Staple Singers and Rick Nelson, during the seminal rocker's Garden Party comeback. Jeff then joined United Artists Records as Director of West Coast Publicity and worked on the debut albums of ELO, Man, Can and Country Gazette, as well as Don McLean's 'American Pie' and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's landmark album Will The Circle Be Unbroken. From 1974-1977 Jeff was head of publicity for Island Records' US label where he was at the forefront of introducing Bob Marley and reggae to America. Jeff worked with an amazing roster of artists, including Steve Winwood, Brian Eno, Robert Palmer, The Chieftains, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Sparks, Toots & The Maytals, Michael Nesmith and Richard Thompson. While at Island, Jeff co-founded Antilles Records as a subsidiary and was its first A&R Director, bringing unique albums from around the world to the revolutionary label. Jeff also produced several albums for Antilles, including two albums of West African music that influenced both Peter Gabriel and David Byrne in their explorations of World Music. In 1976, Jeff was at a Kingston hotel with Chris Blackwell to film Marley's Smile Jamaica concert and was about to leave for a meeting with Bob when gunmen invaded Marley's complex. Subsequently, Jeff was with Bob for much of the next few harrowing days and produced a (never released) documentary that chronicled the attempted assassination and the triumphant concert that followed. In recent years, Jeff has been a genre film marketing consultant specializing in science fiction, fantasy, horror and comic book-related movies and was named one of the 50 smartest people in Hollywood in Entertainment Weekly's first annual "Smart Issue" (12/7/07) for bringing Hollywood's attention to the vast network of genre fans and the growing importance of the International Comic-con in San Diego in bringing mainstream audiences to these same films.

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