Brooks Williams: Hundred Year Shadow
For the month of June we have chosen an album from an East Coast singer/songwriter. Brooks Williams is an accomplished guitarist who has released 16 independent albums. He has been touring consistently for over 20 years and is a sought after guitar instructor and session player. His style tends to be categorized as folk/roots music, but a careful listen will yield various influences including blues, jazz, classical, and some international flavors as well. All of these influences are heard on his 1999 album "Hundred Year Shadow"
"Hundred Year Shadow" is a fully guitar based album with Brooks Williams showcasing his versatility across various acoustic and resonator guitars along with some electric work and even a ukulele. Blues with a tinge of country and a smattering of the islands are the predominant musical themes throughout the album.
The album starts out strongly with the track "A Darker Kind of Blue" which deals with seeing someone going through a great deal of pain. The track is driven with a strong acoustic riff and accented by a weeping slide guitar. The acoustic guitar solo starts as a "traditional" blues guitar but then switches to something quite a bit smoother that showcases incredible dexterity and musicianship.
While the music on the album is incredibly strong, the lyrics to several of the tracks leave something to be desired. "Willie Mae Bowne" and "Mockingbird Hill" both seem to be stories that we are dropped into the middle of with no background and no resolution. "House of Truth" is a song of spiritual searching set to an excellent set of slide guitar riffs. There seemed to be a mismatch between lyrics and music on this track.
Instrumentally, Brooks Williams proves to be an excellent musician across a range of styles. From the swinging blues of "Darker Kind of Blue", to the heavily major pentatonic/country influenced "Monkey." There were also two instrumental numbers on the album ("Kar-Kar" and "Songs My Brother Taught Me"). These instrumentals included an excellent display of slide guitar with themes that explore Polynesian Island sounds (think Hawaiian Luau.) Brooks Williams proves to be a very talented guitarist who has mastered several styles of guitar and lets them shine through in his playing as an interesting counterpoint to the vocal tracks especially on "monkey" where the guitar provides the sonic representation on a monkey "jumping from tree to tree."
Two other bright spots on this album were "All the Ways You Wander", an island themed song, with just guitars, vocals, and a ukulele providing the orchestration. Lastly the Beatles track "I Will" was covered spectacularly with just an acoustic guitar and vocals.
While in my opinion, several of the vocal tracks were lacking in substance, "Hundred Year Shadow" has earned a Paravellum recommendation with 3 stars due to the excellent guitar work throughout the album