Joshua Ray Walker Brings His Cancer-Trilogy Tour to Meow Wolf in Santa Fe After Surviving Colon Cancer, Lung Surgery and a Career-Threatening Health Scare

SANTA FE, NM — Joshua Ray Walker arrives in Santa Fe with a story that could have ended his rise just as it was beginning. In the fall of 2023, the Dallas-area singer-songwriter was opening for The Killers in Reno, had sold-out dates in Europe ahead of him and was set to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Then his appendix burst, and the medical emergency led to a colon cancer diagnosis. Walker later learned he had Stage 3B colon cancer, and doctors at one point misidentified cancer in his lungs as Stage 4 disease. Instead of slowing him down permanently, the ordeal pushed him into one of the most productive stretches of his career.

A childhood spent absorbing everything from bluegrass to Fela Kuti

Walker says music has been part of his life since he was very young. He started on banjo at age 4 and moved to guitar a couple of years later, while spending afternoons with his grandfather, who lived next door and collected records from across many styles.

That family influence was unusually wide-ranging. Walker remembers hearing Gregorian ...