The Reverend KM Williams is a true blues genius and a fast rising star
in old school Texas Boogie Blues, carrying on the traditions of the
great Texas bluesmen such as Lightnin’ Hopkins and Blind Lemon
Jefferson. Raised in Red River county of East TX, Williams played his
very first guitar licks as a mere toddler sitting in the lap of the
great Elmore James. From that auspicious beginning, Williams built his
musical chops in church performances steeped in gospel and R&B.
Though he plays several kinds of guitar, the most distinctive instrument
in his arsenal is an electrified Diddley bow, a fretless one-string
instrument that has its origins in African slaves who fashioned a string
of bailing wire to a wood plank and a hallowed out gourd, which when
played with a bottle produced the familiar sounds of a blues slide
guitar. You can hear both the Diddley bow and Williams’s distinctive
baritone voice on his newest album, The Real Deal Blues, set to be
released on October 14 by Cleopatra Blues. Williams enthusiastically
proclaims that this album is “a totally unique blues recording that is
both very modern and retro at the same time. This is the most amazing CD
I have ever done!”
Williams is also the subject of “The Real
Deal Blues,” an extraordinary new short film. Shot by Jay Gillian in the
Deep Ellum area of Dallas, a historic blues district where Blind Lemon
himself used to busk, this documentary tells Williams’s story while
simultaneously telling the story of Texas blues through narration as
well as electrifying performances of Williams and his band members,
including drummer Washboard Jackson and Blues Music Award-winning
harmonicist Deacon Jeff Stone. True to the blues tradition, the stages
are modest, sparse, with nary a dance choreographer, Marshal stack or
pyrotechnic in sight, yet the performances are no less riveting. This is
authentic blues music played with passion and purpose. As Williams
himself puts it, “If you want to make money, you need to become a pop
musician, not a blues musician. This music is about life and it’s about
feeling and about expressing those feelings and having people digging
what your doing.”
Buy the CD: http://flyt.it/RevKMWilliamsCD
Buy the digital version: http://flyt.it/RevKMWilliamsDig
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