Blues Americana guitarist singer and songwriter Brooks Williams delivers the deepest and most intense interpretations of everything from early blues songs to his recent original compositions on Baby O!, his 17th CD, his first recorded in the UK.
Brooks Williams has been travelling the musicians road for 23 years now! All that travelling between the UK and US has shaped his style and songs to deliver some great uplifting and soulful sounds! Baby O! is a high class album with some great feel good tunes and catchy riffs, alongside some achingly good blues, his guitar version of Amazing grace is straight out of a forgotten era! We loved it!
Williams’ voice floats over foot-stomping grooves and rollicking guitar riffs supported by David Goodier’s bass, PJ Wright’s steel and dobro, and Keith Warmington’s harmonica. Produced by Williams and engineered by Andy Bell (Seasick Steve), Baby O! is his most immediate and compelling roots record to date.
The music that travelled across the ocean from the US to the UK on scratchy records and static-laden radio signals in the 1950s and early 1960s, then travelled back across to the US via records, singers and guitarists from the UK in the late 1960s and 1970s, continues its journey back and forth in the on-going singing of a timeless song.
Walk You Off My Mind:
[audio:http://www.box.net/shared/static/qa0fyxkhn2.mp3|titles=Walk You Off My Mind|artists=Brooks Williams]
Amazing Grace:
[audio:http://www.box.net/shared/static/kkxl1vg35h.mp3|titles=Amazing Grace|artists=Brooks Williams]
The road from Statesboro, Georgia to England is not as long as you might think – especially if you go via Texas. Which is what I did. It’s a crazy geography, but that’s how it happened. Years ago, within a few hours of touching down in England, my Justin boots were walking the streets of Bristol and found the club where I was to play. It was packed with people who welcomed me as if I were a traveler returned home from a long journey. After the sweaty show, in the small hours of the morning, in between each lonely cab that passed under my window, I heard the faintest strains of red-clay Piedmont hollers, wind-blown Texas ballads and dusty Delta blues. There was something so familiar in the night’s quiet singing that I could not shake it. And haven’t. In the passing years, 23 to be exact, as I have more or less followed the points on the compass rose from London to Memphis to Boston to Dallas to Istanbul to Dublin, that song has become my own. So for my 17th CD I bring my guitars, my voice, and my songs to England to record them with friends in the place where I first heard that night song. I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Brooks Williams
You can hear Brook Williams on our Rootie channel from the end of this week. He will be touring the UK from April so make sure you catch him, see the dates below.
Link: www.brookswilliams.com
Brooks Williams • UK Tour • April-July 2010
April
Friday 16 Thames Ditton The Ram Club @ The Old Cranleighan Club
Saturday 17 Devizes The Bear Hotel Wiltshire
Sunday 18 Ivybridge Folk On The Moor @ The Westward Inn,
Thursday 22 Rothbury Rothbury Roots @ The Queens Head
Friday 23 Carlisle Carlisle Folk & Blues Club, Sunset Suite, Carlisle United FC
Saturday 24 Belper Belper Music & Arts, Top Bar @ The Queen’s Head
Wednesday 30 Bristol Jazz @ Future Inns: Blues Night, Cabot Circus Hotel with band
May
Saturday 8 Cromer Folk On The Pier – Solo show
Sunday9 Cromer Folk On The Pier – Guitar Massif Blues Jam
Tuesday 11 Lingfield British Wildlife Centre, Newchapel
Saturday 15 Battle The King’s Head
June
Thursday 17 Hebden Bridge Steve Tilston’s Trades Roots: Trades Club
Saturday 19 Dorchester Dorchester Blues Society at Dorchester Arts Centre
Saturday 26 Manningtree Red Lion
July
Saturday 3 Ashover Ashover Well Dressed Festival
Sunday 4 Ashover Ashover Well Dressed Festival
Monday 5 London Monday Monday @ The Wilmington Arms, Clerkenwell The Cross Kings, York Way
Thursday Otterton Otterton Mill with band
Saturday 10 Priddy Priddy Folk Festival with band