So several years ago, no wait that’s three, no more! Ok it says that Hundred Year Shadow was released in 1999 so I guess about 10 years ago I first discovered Brooks Williams music. WXPN was playing tracks off the aforementioned album and we went to the Main Point to see him. When I first listened to Brooks’ music the thing that stood out was his guitar playing and when I saw him live I was even more impressed and told him so! For which I got a thanks because he said that;s what he loves the most! And he is damn good at it! A while back I mentioned the Top 100 Acoustic Guitarists well Brooks is number 76 and his two solo guitar albums Little Lion and Guitar Player are two favorites. If you check out nothing else check out “Frenzy at the Feeder”. But Brooks is also a great singer and has a catalog of about seventeen albums. Today I listened again to his latest album Baby O! . Here’s what it says at his website about the album:
His stunning 2010 recording Baby O!, produced and recorded in the UK by Williams and Andy Bell (Seasick Steve, The Demon Barbers, Kerfuffle), features standard blues alongside original songs. It has been played on BBC Radio Two, CBC (Canada), National Public Radio (US), RTE (IRE), and has been featured in Maverick, Rock N’ Reel, Acoustic, and been lauded by the likes of Scotland On Sunday, The Irish News and Ctrl Alt Country (Belgium). fRoots calls it “Americana at its finest!” Minor 7th writes: “If you should ever find yourself trying to explain “Americana” to an extraterrestrial, simply buy them a copy of Baby O! and a set of headphones!”
The album opens up with “Frank Delandry” a song about the death of a New Orleans guitar player and is followed by a great cover of Son House’s “Grinning in Your Face”. The resonator and harp are pulled out for “Walk You Off My Mind” you can get a free download of this track here. Go Now and come back – Are You Back? I love the steel guitar on the track “Last Chance Love” and the guitar work on the title trrck “Baby O!” The two instrumentals on the album “Amazing Grace” and “Devil’s Punchbowl” are also favorites, as is
Brooks cover of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Louis Collins”. Oh, here we go again all the tracks are good on I think is strongest album ever for this great guitarists from Statesboro Georgia who now resides in Cambridge, England and I do hope that sometime this year he visits the Philly area again ten years is too long between live performances!!
Here’s Brooks with a Mississippi Fred McDowell song “61 Highway”
