Review Summary: A cross between Tom Waits and Randy Newman that works on all levels.
They say that anything goes in today’s Nashville as far as music is concerned. Still, if anything goes, and based on the evidence of Tipping My Hat To Leonard, his latest album, how come David Williams, hasn’t made it yet?
Williams has a load of albums and material behind him, including everything from children’s tunes to singer/songwriter material, swing, bluegrass, alt-Americana… Oh, and he has written a handful of books, again, from fiction and poetry to neurosciences and teaches writing at various universities.
Which is all great, and brings us back to his music and this latest album. Williams is obviously no spring chicken and can be easily placed along such great names as Leonard Cohen (yes, the title song is devoted to this music/poetry genius), Ry Cooder, Tom Waits, Randy Newman and John Prine. Yet, having such lofty influences don’t always bring exciting music and can turn into a series of half-baked pastiches.
Luckily.for everybody, that is certainly not the case with Williams. His vocals are somewhere along the cross-section of Waits and Cooder (or Leon Redbone, for that matter), and while it would be unfair to compare his guitar skills to either Cooder or Prine, he sure can get quite close, like on the aptly titled “Who Let That Django Jazz Into The Room”.
Two other elements on Tipping My Hat To Leonard spell an excellent album. First is Williams’ brilliant command of all the musical elements at hand, like the classic folk of “Little Tiny Foreign Car”, acoustic blues of “Complicated Women” or the brilliant alt-Americana of the closer “Holy Earth”. Or, particularly, the gipsy jazz/swing stylings of for example “Irritation Polka”. The other is his way with words (he does teach writing, after all) which often reach to the level of both Waits and Newman, often coming up with great tongue in cheek couplets, again, akin to both of the mentioned greats, like in “Icon” and “Frozen In The Ice Age”.
So why hasn’t David Williams made it yet? On the evidence of this album, I frankly have no idea. Maybe a lot of the material here reminds people of Tom Waits from the Black Rider period, or he is simply too sophisticated for some. I don’t know, What I do know is that I’ll be playing Tipping My Hat To Leonard quite often and tipping my hat both to Leonard and David Williams (and other mentioned names) at the same time.
