Born on August 19, 1969 in Beaumont, Texas to Ernest and Danna Walker.  The oldest of five children, Walker lived in Vidor with his father, who gave him a guitar when he was nine years old.

 Walker began entering talent competitions at age fifteen. After leaving his shift as nighttime desk clerk at a Super 8 Motel, he stopped at a local radio station to deliver a tape of a song that he had written. Although the morning disc jockey told him that the station's policies prohibited playing self-submitted tapes, he played Walker's song and said that it was "too good to pass up."

After graduating from Vidor High School in 1986, Walker began working at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant.  At nineteen, he also began touring as a musician, playing various local clubs and eventually finding work as the house singer at a bar in Beaumont called the Neon Armadillo. In November 1992, he was discovered by James Stroud, a record producer who was also the president of Warner Music Group subsidiary Giant Records. Walker signed to Giant late in the year.