Joe Louis Walker at Spaceland Ballroom in Hamden Friday night

HAMDEN >> Blues doesn’t come any fresher or more soulful than what 2013 Blues Hall of Fame inductee Joe Louis Walker will serve up Friday night at the Spaceland Ballroom, 295 Treadwell St.

Walker, a San Francisco native, still with deep roots there, as well as in the gospel music he once played, lives these days in New York’s Hudson Valley when he’s not constantly touring. He has a new album, “Hornet’s Nest,” due out on Alligator Feb. 25.

He’ll be playing songs off it at Spaceland, along with lots of other cuts of the soulful, often incendiary blues he’s known for.

“I made it with the same cast of characters as last time, including The Jordanaires,” Walker, 64, said in a recent interview, referring also to his last album, “Hellfire,” which was his first for Alligator. “It’s a fun record ... It’s a Joe Louis Walker record!”

New Haven-based bluesman Rocky Lawrence and New Haven’s The Cobalt Rhythm Kings will open the show, with The Kings (yes, that’s my band) getting the ball rolling at 8 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $22 day of show at the door or at www.spacelandballroom.com (or $18 in advance if you’re seeing this online before Friday.)

Walker said his Blues Hall of Fame induction was “somewhat bittersweet,” coming the year after the induction of his late good friend, mentor and onetime housemate Michael Bloomfield — and in the same year as one of Walker’s models and idols, Earl Hooker.

“Under no stretch of the imagination am I in the same field as Michael Bloomfield or Earl Hooker,” Walker said.

The Blues Foundation, which created the Hall of Fame, would appear to disagree.

Walker was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame last year along with Hooker, Chicago soul blues singer Otis Clay, pianist Little Brother Montgomery, “The Blue Yodeler” Jimmie Rodgers and Chicago guitar pioneer Jody Williams, who played on much of Howlin’ Wolf’s early work, as well as with Elmore James, Charles Brown, Jimmie Witherspoon and Otis Rush.

“Michael Bloomfield was incendiary,” Walker said of his old friend, whom he met in 1968.

Bloomfield still is best known in most quarters as the brash guitarist in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which was influential in introducing the blues to a rock-and-roll audience — and expanding its appeal across the color barrier in the process. He died in 1981.

Bloomfield introduced Walker to the likes of Sly Stone, Carlos Santana, Steve Miller, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Jorma Kaukonen, then of Jefferson Airplane, and even to jazz legend Wayne Shorter. He also helped nudge Walker’s blues in a more rock-infused direction.

Walker acknowledges Bloomfield’s influence on his music, saying, “I can sometimes feel him in my playing.”

That’s no accident. Walker and fellow musician Johnny Cramer — first cousin of Barry Goldberg, keyboard player in Bloomfield’s Electric Flag — lived in Bloomfield’s house at a time when you never knew who might turn up.

“You’d go to sleep and wake up and Carey Bell would be standing there,” he recalled, referring to the late blues great who remains one of the blues’ best-ever harmonica players. “You’d wake up and a bunch of guys would be sitting around playing guitar.”

Bloomfield “taught me a lot of stuff late at night,” Walker said.

Clearly, Walker learned something back then. But it was by no means the beginning of his blues education.

Walker was backing touring blues artists by the time he was 16, an age when he served as the house guitarist at The Matrix, San Francisco’s legendary club of that time. He has been a stalwart on the national blues scene for decades after developing his blues in the diverse, soulful, psychedelic cauldron that was San Francisco in the 1960s.

As a teenager, he got the opportunity to play with and get to know legends such as “Mississippi” Fred McDowell, Ike Turner, Albert King, Freddy King, Robert Lockwood Jr., Lightnin’ Hopkins and others.

Walker dropped out of the blues scene and played nothing but gospel music — as a member of The Spiritual Corinthians — from 1975 to 1985, but came roaring back in 1986, when he released his debut album on Hightone Records.

Blues Revue has called Walker “one of contemporary blues’ most dynamic and innovative musicians, releasing consistently exciting music. No matter what he’s singing, Walker’s approach is soulful, heartfelt and spellbinding.”

Call Mark Zaretsky at 203-789-5722.