Live Review
Jody Williams
Famous Dave’s
October 17, 2003
by Rich Benson
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"Keeping the Blues Alive Award" Achievement for Blues on the Internet Presented by The Blues Foundation
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Jody Williams does things with a guitar that you have to see and hear in order to fully appreciate what a brilliant blues guitarist he is. This night he brought his great playing and terrific Chicago based blues band into Famous Dave’s for what turned out to be a master’s clinic on blues guitar and classy showmanship. Jody kicked things off with his signature song, an instrumental version of “All My Love.” His smooth, fluid, expressive playing had him employing a great hand slide. Jody’s rubbing, sensual, great toned guitar captured the crowd’s attention right away. With playing like this, you really don’t need vocals, but Jody is also a strong blues singer, with his warm, husky strong voice. He let it all out on his soulful, reverent cover of "St. James Infirmary.” Jody’s sad, soulful, vocals, quavering with passion, perfectly matched his alternately jangling and crying, wailing and soulful guitar licks. He delivered an incredibly emotional, powerful performance here, which had the crowd responding with enthusiasm.
Jody switched gears sharply, with the catchy, infectious, cheeky song “Wham Bam, Thank You Ma’am” from his Return of a Legend CD. His rich, fluid guitar riffs, great strong vocals, and enthusiasm in getting the crowd to participate in singing the refrain was a highlight of the night. In addition to being an exceptional lead player, Jody is a superb rhythm guitarist, allowing his talented rhythm guitarist, Chris James, ample opportunity to share lead duties. Jody can do so many great sounding things on guitar, all with style and great tone. On “Everybody’s Got to Go” he played great repeating chords, sweetly ringing notes, some quick popping, jazzy guitar riffs, and finished the song off with a smooth guitar flourish. He pointed out that the jazzy blues of “Don’t You Cry” was recorded in his teens. The powerful lyrics delivered with husky passion and great toned guitar made for a great blues sound.
Jody paid tribute to B. B. King and T-Bone Walker, noting they were the biggest influences on his playing. Since B. B. is still doing his thing, Jody played a medley of Walker hits including “T-Bone Shuffle” and “Tell Me What’s the Reason.” While he delivered the songs with his own style, he captured the blues spirit and sound of Walker. Jody joked that when he played with T-Bone he could do everything note for note, including playing behind his head but stopped short when T-Bone did it all while doing the splits. Jody closed out his first set with the up-tempo, jamming blues of “Since My Baby Left.” He used a short, quick hand slide, sparingly employed the wah-wah pedal, fast picking, then bringing it down for some great, subtle playing where his pick just tickled the strings. His band achieves a great, large ensemble sound for just four pieces. In addition to Chris James on guitar, the brilliant Willie “The Touch” Hayes and rock solid Patrick Flynn provided the great rhythm groove and big sound behind Jody.
During his second set Jody mixed up some solid covers with songs from his CD. “Another Fool That Bumped His Head” has the humor, earthiness, and heart evident throughout Jody’s music. As with a few others, he explained how the song came about, and then delivered played great, grinding blues guitar with a great held note off his hand slide. He got into some energetic, driving blues on the double shuffle of “Leave That Monkey Alone.” Jody’s cover of “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane” had him adding his own style, from use of the wah-wah pedal to his hand slide and powerful, fast picking. Jody closed out his set with a second playing of the instrumental, “All My Love.” Blues fans stood and cheered some of the most brilliant blues guitar Famous Dave’s has ever seen. A few people might think it takes a lot of nerve to entitle a CD Return of a Legend, but the W. C. Handy Award voters agreed by honoring Jody with a Handy for Blues Comeback Artist of the year. After 35 years of not playing, Jody is making up for lost time. He has a second CD due shortly, and is already talking about his third one. Be sure to catch Jody Williams live if you get a chance. He is definitely one of the top five pure blues guitarists today, if not the best. And he truly is a legend.
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