Keller Williams
Raw
Reviewed by: Geno Thackara
Leave him alone with just one instrument and Keller Williams will pull out some fun surprises. He’s good at doing a lot with a little, as in the looping-and-layering solo performances he’s known for, but any of that trickery is entirely left out this time around. The aptly named Raw is an all-solo recording with no effects and only one overdub to be heard.
If there’s an occasional flaw, it’s the lyrics. This collection takes brief slump toward the end with “I Forgot” and “Short Show,” a pair of presumably true stories that manage to feel both half-baked and too long at 2-3 minutes. Fortunately nothing truly drags at that length, and the remainder of the collection shows an impressive variety for a bunch of solo tracks.
The rhymes are much more effective with the rusty blues shuffle of “Right Here” (“You can whack me with a frying pan / ‘long as you let me be your man”), while most of the other vocals are just as nice and simple as the music requires. The minimalist “Ella” takes just that one word; a couple of the others turn out not to need any words at all. Sometimes it’s much more interesting to let his expert fretwork do the talking.
Williams draws on the dazzling fingerpicking of his sometime collaborator Leo Kottke (including but not limited to the song titled after him), while the tricky percussion and string-tapping of the bookend tracks do a fine job channeling the spirit of Michael Hedges. More importantly, the flash is always attached to a tune or hook instead of being there for its own sake. With plenty of honest charm and no danger of taking anything too seriously, even the virtuosic parts come out almost humble. Sometimes just a little is really enough.
Rating: Listenable
