(Jam Rock/Acoustic) Keller Williams - Stage
Keller Williams, a musician beyond description. For several years, the very diverse performer has wowed audiences with his technical ability, his humor and most importantly, his musicianship. This goof of a man lives for live performances. During his shows, he vents not only his precise guitar picking on his ten string guitar (Yes, only ten string), but yes his mixing and percussion skills. Keller is without a doubt an original artist, and one of Rock n Roll’s most underrated rated.
Though Mr. Williams has released some quite credible recorded albums, he has not be praised for them. Luckily, he is a live act like no other. Though, he basically walks on stage with no shoes on, sings and plays his instruments. There is a presence to him. Whether it’s is silly antics or his occasional seriousness, there is an interesting persona to him.
Keller is an outstanding musician. When on stage, he commonly switches from using a ten string guitar, to six string guitar, to a select number of hand drums, to a bass guitar. He is accomplished at each of those instrument and blends them beautifully with his looping device. To get the one man band sound without playing every instrument at one, Williams uses a recording technique known as live phrase sampling. As Keller says, “I simply steps on a button, play or sing a phrase, step on the button again and it repeats what I just played or sang. Then I can layer a bass line or a drumbeat or a birdcall or whatever.”. The musician also goes on to state, “It’s much easier done than said”. It is certainly interesting how such a simple (supposedly) device can help Keller Williams perform such intricate songs and patterns.
Keller’s guitar style is definitely the most interesting subject regarding his musicianship. He grew up listening to the likes the Grateful Dead (He had actually toured with the band for a number of years), Michael Hedges, Leo Kottke and Garcia & Grisman. So it is no surprise that his acoustic virtuoso style shows definite influence of Jerry Garcia, Leo Kottke and finally Michael Hedges. Like his personality, Keller’s playing is also quite odd. He commonly plays a ten string acoustic guitar. Yes, the guitar was most likely once a twelve string, but he obviously doesn’t use the other two. On top of that, Keller usually performs lesser seen techniques on his ten string guitar. Slaps and pops are always featured in the musician’s playing.
Keller Williams: Stage is compilation of live performances during the year of 2003, all released during he year of 2004. On stage left, Keller states that he showcases the attentive energy of a seated listening audience, while stage right explores the seat less dancing party vibe. So a variety of tempos and key are of course used throughout the album.
The most interesting part of Stage would have to be the interesting covers performed. Keller manages to cover a lot of ground, genre wise. The first cover presented would be the Hip Hop legend “Rapper’s Delight”. The serious, yet hilarious number is build on a combination of hand drum beats. Keller’s looping is really shown, when the bass lines add in. Soon enough, Keller throws in some beautiful guitar and horn lines. In time, the rapping enters. He raps the words with complete confidence and style, making “Rapper’s Delight” a for sure highlight. Two tracks down, Keller takes on the Queen/ David Bowie hit, “Under Pressure”. He covers the main line well, but most definitely adds his own style. He manages to bring a laugh out of the audience when he states the opening lyrics to Vanilla Ice’s oddly similar rap. Williams also manages to make the song a highlight and by imitating the vocal antics of both David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. From mumbling, to random scatting, Keller does it all. On track number eleven on Stage Left, Keller performs his rendition of Van Morrison’s “Moon Dance”. He adds wonderful scatting and horn playing to the already influence mix. He even manages to forget the words, but make up for the loss by reminding the audience to not make the mistake he just did.
On Stage Right, Keller offers his cover of Jerry Garcia’s fantastic “Bird Song”. A mystique and enigmatic original that no artist can live up. However, Keller does manage to make his rendition interesting none the less. Once again scat filled, this cover features an outrageous amount of instruments; Everything including birdcalls. To end his amount of interesting covers, is a version of Buffalo Springfield’s Political folk Rock anthem “For What It’s Worth”. Unfortunately, Keller does not deliver on this piece. He provides a back bone to the tune with bad matching percussion beat.
Though Stage does feature many fantastic live covers, it also has some great originals. The best being the hilarious “Novelty Song”. A comedic number features Keller rambling on random happenings and why the current song being sung is useless. Just the subject in general is rather humorous. Overall, completely useless, yet extremely catchy and memorable. Eight tracks before, lies the instrumental “Dance of the Freek”. Keller’s upbeat compilation of instruments. From the thundering bass lines to the interesting diggeri doo Keller demonstrates more diversity before the most likely, already shocked crowd. Though, wild number is really indescribable, I’ll lean towards calling it a Techno - Native Indian genre. Another exciting original off of Stage Left would most definitely have to be the intro, “Tubeular”. A rapid venture through harmonics, upbeat guitar patterns and wild phrasing. Keller shows off his guitar skills like no other on this piece. “Tubeular” also builds up very good and clean. Horns and drumbeats add in and harmonize perfectly. One of the man’s best instrumentals.
“Cracker Ass Cracker” would be the first stand out track on Stage Right. The humorous songs slightly tells the story of a “cracker ass cracker” would cannot play the Blues because he had never felt any pain. Keller does play the song with a slide, adding much more to the song. The song is very melancholy, but occasionally nonchalant in a way. It doesn’t not feature 30 instrument, but satisfies me perfectly. And finishing up the list of stand up tracks is the Latin influenced number, “Celebrate Your Youth”. A rapidly played combination of percussion and effects. A nice hand drum beat is used for the back bone, and various other percussion instrumental take turns at leading the song. Keller’s vocals come in mid way through. His voice is usually always nice. Rarely anything to complain about. His lyrics are entertaining and interesting. He tells the listener to celebrate his youth by doing youthful activities. Very interesting. There are few bad songs on Stage, just boring instrumentals. All including a massive amount of great technical ability, but some just put me to sleep. Otherwise, they just do not add something not already seen or just do not present the listener with something good.
Keller Williams: Stage is a great, fun introduction to the artist. It is sure to entertain everyone at some point. Though there are recorded albums the are much better than this live compilation, it features Keller in his natural state, the stage.
