Don Walker

In 2019 Black Inc. published his follow-up memoir, Songs.

Tex, Don and Charlie reconvened in 2017 with a new album, You Don't Know Lonely, reaching number 14 in the Australian charts, and an extensive national tour.

In 2013, Walker released the album Hully Gully. It was recorded with the Suave Fucks over a decade. Joe Henry was asked to mix the album because Walker was impressed by his work on the Allen Toussaint album The Bright Mississippi, saying, "it sounded like Duke Ellington produced by Jimmy Page. I just fell in love with the record." Named after a simple 60s dance, it was thought by some to be his best album to date, but failed to chart.

Walker is considered to be one of Australia's best songwriters. In 2012 he was inducted into the Australian Songwriter's Hall of Fame.

Live in Queenscliff, Walker's first live album, was given a digital-only release in early 2011. It features a performance with The Suave Fucks at the 2006 Queenscliff Music Festival. Another digital-only album, Live at the Caravan, was released in 2014.

Walker published his first book, Shots, in 2009. It was an autobiographical collection of smaller pieces, rarely more than a few pages in length. The subject matter was mostly recollections of rural Australia or life with Cold Chisel before they became widely famous. A separate piece by Walker had previously been included in The Best Australian Essays collection for 2007.

Shots received a number of positive reviews: The Age described the memoir as "a whip crack across a landscape of rural Australia, lonely highways and endless gigs;" in the Australian Book Review it was called "a quite wonderful book [that] blasts away every last vestige of the crude, boozy, foot-stomping, flag-waving Australiana that has until now enveloped the Cold Chisel story like a filthy smog, leaving behind only the simmering highways, the trashy motels, the dank pubs and the monotonous suburbs of a nation slouching apathetically through the remnants of the 20th century." Readings from Shots, as performed by Walker, were aired on Radio National throughout late 2009.

From 2005 to 2019, Walker toured Australia occasionally with his backing band, The Suave Fucks (named after a line from Blue Velvet). They featured Roy Payne on baritone guitar, Michael Vidale on bass, Hamish Stuart on drums, Garrett Costigan, and Glen Hannah on guitar until his death in 2019.

2005 saw the release of a third Tex, Don and Charlie album, All is Forgiven, similar in style to the first. Again, Walker wrote about half the songs, including "Harry was a Bad Bugger", described by Chris Johnston as, "the Australian song of the year", and by Mess & Noise as, "one of the finest Australian compositions of the last 20 years." The album was shortlisted for the inaugural Australian Music Prize.

From the earliest days Walker was the creative songwriting force for Cold Chisel. He became known for his passionate and raw lyrical observations on the Australian society and culture of the time. His songwriting credits include the hit singles "Flame Trees," "Saturday Night," "Choirgirl,""Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye)", "Cheap Wine," and the Australian Vietnam war song "Khe Sanh" (voted the 8th greatest Australian song of all time by the Australian Performing Rights Association in 2001). Many of these songs still receive airplay on Australian radio to this day and have become ingrained in Australian music culture.

1994 was the year of Walker's first full release under his own name, We're All Gunna Die. He stated that it was the first album to carry his name as, "it was the first record that finished up how I wanted it." Rehearsal sessions were held over four afternoons in Walker's lounge room, and all songs were recorded in 3 takes or less. The band featured David Blight, Garrett Costigan on pedal-steel guitar and Red Rivers on guitar. The music was a ragged mix of country, Chicago blues and balladry, and featured the song "Eternity". It would be another 12 years before Walker was to produce another solo recording, the well-received Cutting Back.

In early 1992, Walker featured in an acoustic live performance for alternative radio station JJJ with Charlie Owen, James Cruickshank and Tex Perkins. In 1993 Tex, Don and Charlie released their first album, Sad but True on Red Eye Records. The record, an acoustic country-tinged affair, returned Walker to some level of popular awareness and received rave reviews in magazines like Australian Rolling Stone. About half the songs were written by Walker, including "Sitting in a Bar". The band toured strongly on the back of the album, later releasing a live album Monday Morning Coming Down, featuring tracks from Sad But True plus some covers of standards.

The first album, Unlimited Address, released in 1989, showed a jazzier, Eastern European side to Walker's songwriting, reflecting his travels during the previous years. Despite being critically lauded, sales were moderate, the album reaching number 49 in the national charts. The next album, "Ruby," was a return to Australia in sound and lyrical subject matter. Again, it was well received by critics but sold relatively poorly. The track "Charleville" was later to receive country music awards when covered by Slim Dusty.

After Cold Chisel disbanded in 1983, Walker had a five-year hiatus before resuming recording and performing. Initially, he had considered hiring an actor to front the band and mime the songs before deciding to front "Catfish." Ostensibly a band, Catfish was in effect a solo project, featuring Walker on vocals, keyboards and penning all the songs. Catfish featured various backing musicians, such as Charlie Owen, Ian Moss, Ricky Fataar and harmonica player David Blight.

Walker moved to Kings Cross in Sydney in 1976, and stayed there for more than three decades. Kings Cross locations, including Springfield Avenue, Forbes Street, Sweethearts and the El Alamein Fountain are mentioned in many of his songs.

Donald Hugh Walker (born 29 November 1951) is an Australian musician, songwriter and author known for writing many of the hits for Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel. He played piano and keyboard with the band from 1973 to 1983, when they disbanded. He has since continued to record and tour, both solo and with Tex, Don and Charlie, and worked as a songwriter for others. In 2009, he released his first book.