Robert Pete Williams When a Man Takes the Blues Review

Clarification

CD 395

Robert Pete Williams – vocals & vi- or 12- string guitar.
Recorded past Harry Oster at Angola State Penitentiary Louisiana in 1959 and 1960. #i 2 & 14 recorded by Chris Strachwitz in Berkeley CA April 1970. Edited past Henry Kaiser.

This is volume ii of two Robert Pete Williams CDs.

1. When A Man Takes The Dejection
2. I Had Trouble
iii. All Night Long
4. Dyin' Soul
5. I Got The Blues And so Bad
6. Sinner Don't You Know
vii. Hot Springs Blues
8. This Train Is Heaven Bound
9. Santa Fe Blues
10. Blueish In Me
11. Death Comes Creeping In Your Room
12. Wife And Farm Blues
13. I Want To Die Easy
fourteen. Robert Pete Williams Monologue

REVIEWS

"Other dejection musicians created wonderful bodies of work; Robert Pete Williams created a whole musical world. The more one listens to his music the more than deeply ane is drawn into his unique vision. The dark fluid vocalisation and straight powerful lyrical imagery build with studied intensity. The guitar accompaniments which often stay within one chord through a whole song are like nothing else in blues though they share characteristics with the playing of John Lee Hooker and the Malian Ali Farka Toure. Williams was `discovered' in the Angola Penitentiary in Louisiana in 1959. He played music derived from the field holler tradition and past extension is closely tied to African roots. His songs were usually improvised unrhymed and in no particular metric design and his guitar tended to office as a rough second vocalisation. Thus he was hailed as the embodiment of a mythic proto-blues that died before the historic period of recording. In fact far from being a primitive Williams had learned much of his craft from mainstream records. However in his belatedly 20s he abased the standard forms for his own idiosyncratic flights. He hewed closely to the old holler tradition but not because he was unschooled in contemporary blues styles. His virtually personal musical excursions often include riffs and lines borrowed from the mainstream and when he wants to play a directly rhymed blues as on `Louise' he can do it brilliantly. These two CDs include Williams'south greatest piece of work.

`Pardon Denied Once again' is one of the early prison recordings a painfully direct meditation. At the other extreme `Wife and Subcontract Blues' finds him singing about the troubles of farming while a woman partner humorously ribs and contradicts him his directly lines feeding her humor. A final monologue includes his ain story of the circumstances that led to his incarceration. Half the tracks are previously unreleased and they are full of unexpected pleasures. Many are religious numbers a previously undocumented side of William's piece of work. Other singers turned to hymns and gospel numbers when they sang Christian material but Williams' religious and secular songs are musically duplicate from i another using the same modal structure and gratuitous lyrical improvisation. If y'all have never heard this music there is no way to describe it. Williams was a ane-of-a-kind genius who bred no imitators. These CDs are his legacy and they are among the masterpieces of American music."

(Elijah Wald — BluesWire)

"The posthumous discovery of yet another rural blues guitarist is always welcome news. Robert Pete Williams who died in 1980 at the age of 66 never garnered much of a following primarily because his unorthodox and improvised guitar playing was unappreciated except past blues aficionados open to idiosyncratic stylings. This two-book CD features Williams' talking blues recorded in 1959 past Folklyric Records owner and producer Harry Oster at Republic of angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana as well every bit a few songs recorded by Chris Strachwitz in 1970. Behave with the poor sound quality; Williams' raspy emotional growl unusual rhythmic instrumental phrasings and surprising solos on half-dozen- and I 2-string acoustics are well worth repeated listens."

(CD Review)

From a Prison Cell to the Advanced
The New York Times Dominicus August 7 1994
By MILO MILES

Although Robert Pete Williams died in 1980 at the historic period of 66 he arguably remains the most avant-garde blues performer ever recorded. No punk rock band has ever matched the jagged acerbic fury of the riffs Williams played 35 years ago. No rapper has approached his ability to evoke the torment of life in prison or bend language to cast an eerie spell over a chance run into with a seductive woman. Williams could improvise precise topical blues numbers with remarkable spontaneity. He had never been recorded when he was discovered in Republic of angola penitentiary in Louisiana convicted of murder. Like the country blues titan Leadbelly Williams even sang his way to liberty.

Yet he was no more than a moderate success on the folk-revival circuit in the 1960s and the very density and originality of his blues must have been part of the reason. His decision to take up the slide guitar was too ill-advised. Today he is a shadowy retentivity unknown outside blues circles. The release of Williams's prison house recordings in 1959 acquired a sensation with an before generation of fans. By rights equal excitement should greet the contempo reissue of about of his earliest sides along with more than a dozen unreleased tunes on 'I'm as Blue every bit a Homo Can Be' (Arhoolie CD 394) and 'When a Homo Takes the Blues' (Arhoolie CD 395).

Dejection revivals come and get and the institution of the House of the Blues chain of nightclubs is one sign the audience for the style is salubrious. But too many of today's younger performers walk through the blues with a vocabulary imited to an always-shrinking serial of overused themes and guitar licks. Compared with such performances Williams'southward blues comes as a draught of straight whisky after sips of warm soda. In particular each of the field recordings made past the folklorist Dr. Harry Oster while Williams was however an inmate is gripping testimony. The first shock is the peculiar form of these blues. Williams repeats the first line at the beginning of each verse but boldly disregards the rest of routine blues structure.

Williams grew up just north of Baton Rouge and like many Delta blues musicians he favors long spidery phrases spiked with difficult beats. And like those of fellow eccentrics Large Joe Williams and John Lee Hooker his guitar accents twine around the particular cadences of his vocalism. 'This Wild Old Life' from 'I'g Blue as a Man Tin can Be' shows Williams at his most stubbornly independent.

While his singing could accept a furry tone at times here it cuts similar a rusty razor as he describes the turmoil of wandering from town to town homeless and lonely. 'I'chiliad a poor boy here' he sings. 'Ain't got no place to get/ I've been riding around here a little while now/ In a little quondam one-horse boondocks/ I don't know no one hither infant/ No i only myself.' The vocal consists well-nigh entirely of a leaping riff that Williams expands contracts and tweaks with rhythmic variations. Though structured with care the performance conveys feet bordering on emotional chaos.

In 'Please Lord Help Me on My Style' the same free-flowing structure based on a more soothing guitar figure suggests dignified contemplation: 'Lord when I'grand in my cloak of gray/ For myself I don't desire no worry.' Williams was as often prayerful equally he was panicked. Virtually of the unreleased songs are Christian supplications at once calmly reverent and riddled with images of decease.

As the guitarist Henry Kaiser points out in his perceptive notes to 'I'thousand as Blue as a Man Can Be' the sparse chords and webs of rhythm in Williams's playing suggests the work of modern West African guitarists like Ali Farka Toure. Indeed the tune 'When a Human Takes the Dejection' could exist an English-linguistic communication excerpt from one of Mr. Toure's albums. And the jangly 'Hot Springs Blues' amidst others shows how much Williams inspired oddball white dejection rockers similar Captain Beefheart.

It is impossible to know why Williams's blues audio so African but they do not back up the old notion now discredited that so-called primitive blues were rough and shapeless and evolved into more regular melodic forms. Williams played more than conventional blues arrangements until he was 28 when he decided to alter his style. In 1965 he gave a widely quoted explanation saying that 'the sound of the atmosphere' changed his playing. 'Information technology could exist from the airplanes or the moaning of automobiles' he said just anyway the wind blew a different music to him that transformed his dejection.

A melancholy introverted homo Williams had difficulty thinking of himself as a professional entertainer. Past all accounts when the blues feeling descended upon him he could unearth tragedy and mystery in whatsoever field of study in 1 famous example his horror at how one-time his face had become in the mirror. At other times he could scarcely force himself to play on stage or off.

Williams made a skillful number of albums after he was paroled but few of them are every bit harrowing as the prison house sessions. He obsessively reflected on his years in jail a menstruation he considered an unjustly harsh extension of his hard-bitten being. An album of prison blues which volition feature Williams's masterpiece 'Prisoner's Talking Dejection' is due this autumn from Arhoolie. It tin can only add to the chills he has provoked for decades.

(Milo Miles is a commentator on globe music for National Public Radio.)

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