Joe Williams
Joe Williams
© 2002 Banzai! Entertainment Inc. (788037020023)
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A stunning, melodic, funny and serious collection of acoustic guitar pieces that reflects the joys found is all of life's simple things.
tracks
- 1 Mustang Romeo
- 2 Evolution
- 3 Three Squirrels
- 4 The Waltz
- 5 Deep Into Autumn
- 6 Nice & Slow
- 7 Ben & Jerry's
- 8 Led Zeppelin Backwards
- 9 Hippie Song
- 10 Pretzel Song
- 11 Black & White Picture
- 12 Lone Cow of Pittsburgh
- 13 Daddy's Recliner
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notes
JOE WILLIAMS
Joe Williams is a 35 year-old library scientist with an amazing wife and two adorable children. Joe Williams also writes songs. Beautiful songs. Funny Songs. Songs that glide and play like a starlet on a first date-simple songs with a full charming regalia of ill-advised rhymes and concocted words. Songs that chronicle a secret world of heroically lost bovine, scared recliners, forgotten canoes, environmentally conscious sugar buzzes, hippie joggers, hesitating-darting-hesitating squirrels, and love. "I like to try and write romantically about unromantic things, like waking up cramped and entangled with your lover, with half your appendages asleep. Or kissing someone for the first time, doing it poorly and hoping they don't mind," says Joe.
Joe constantly seeks the extraordinary in the ordinary. Counting writers Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Charles Dickens, and Sam Shepard as influences, Joe follows their lead hunting the impish truth in small details and tiny moments, "Musically, my goals are pretty basic," says Joe. "I'm interested in the way lots of old folk music and old country roots songs were written about really common things like chickens and skeletons and food instead of a bigger picture, whatever that might be."
Joe first performed for an audience at Warren Wilson College, near Asheville, NC, joining the lineage of such WWC singer/songwriters as Billy Ed Wheeler, David Holt, David Wilcox, and Doug Orr. The first song he performed was a ode to "the only thing stable in this world today...your very own cold Jell-O mold parfait." Audiences have been
hooked on his storytelling treats ever since. At a show, it's common to see several generations following Joe and singing along with his conjured cast of animals, vegetables, and minerals.
"I enjoy taking that kind of old subject matter and modernizing it a little bit, (see Mustang Romeo and Lone Cow of Pittsburgh) and playing in the same traditional kinds of arrangements. So an old time song might be about a fox running from hunters through the woods, and I'm writing about a squirrel running from a car across a highway." In Deep into Autumn, a ballad about an "all-but forgotten" pond canoe, Joe says to the depressed and aging vessel, "If she could step back and see how she appears to me, there's just no such thing as entropy." Joe sings and proves that while we fight against entropy and the cluttered confusion of a 24/7 world, the simplicity, richness, and humor which inspired so many old-fashioned folk songs still exists in modern life if we have the imagination to recognize it.
This summer Joe Williams packs up 15 years in North Carolina and heads West for College Station, TX. One imagines that come summer, Joe will be up early with the rising Texan sun, and armed with a guitar and a hot cup of coffee, he'll be taking vantage from an undisclosed porch swing and tickling the dry air with a few requests.
reviews
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This CD is the BEST! Lyrics that bring tears & laughter!
author: InfoladyMusic that everyone can relate to. Didn't your Daddy have a recliner? Lyrics that really hit the nail on the head! Listening to a live performance brought me to tears. Real life experiences and a really good feel for making the ordinary seem special.
Mustang Romeo is a hit!
author: KatieThis is one of the best CD's for laughing. My favorite song is Mustang Romeo because one of my friends drive a 1967 baby blue Mustang and the verse about being short a few cards describes him perfectly because he is missing a few. Thanks for writing a great song and CD.
a thoughtful and funny songsmith
author: maccabeusJoe Williams is an extremely gifted songsmith and this CD is a delight. There's lots of humor here, even silliness (Lone Cow of Pittsburgh is a classic example), often with an edge to it and always perfectly worded and timed. This CD also has its serious and moving sides. The Waltz is simply a beautiful song, and would be worth the price of the CD by itself. My only complaint about this CD is all of the terrific Joe Williams songs that aren't on it. If you're lucky enough to catch a live show, many more treats await.