Topic: Richard Williams

[JoeCigueno]

Ran across this artist when I bought Dust to Digital's Drop On Down in Florida.  There's an album's worth of recordings from the late 70s of this same artist, free to download. I haven't seen anything on Richard Williams on this forum, but maybe I missed a prior discussion.

https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/audio/playlists/playlist6.php

Technically, he presents nothing remarkable as a singer or a guitarist, and his intonation with the slide is sometimes lazy.  However his music puts me in a very pleasant space... he just flows from one tune to another, half improvising and tossing in lyrics as the mood suits him. He has certainly lived in these songs for many years. I am glad I ran across his music.

I assume he is playing everything in Vestapol tune up around E. I am not good at figuring out tunings or keys, so if anyone wants to correct me, I would welcome it.

[Johnm]

Thanks very much for posting that link, Joe. I have "Drop Down In Florida", but I wan't aware of this additional set devoted exclusively to Richard Williams' music. He really was a nice singer and player both. And the pieces on the link are all in Vestapol, as you surmised, with the exception of "Grieving' All Night Long", which is in Dropped-D tuning and "Old Forty", which is in E, standard tuning. I particularly like those two cuts, but many of them are exceptional, and it's really nice to hear both secular and religious numbers I'd not previously heard.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I've been particularly enjoying Richard Williams' beautiful recording of "Old Forty", and thought I would take a shot at posting the lyrics here, because I can't find the rendition on youtube, and it is available to be heard in the link that JoeCigueno posted in the first post of this thread. If you've not listened to it yet, I hope you'll seek it out. It has a beautifully measured quality, and is less than three minutes long. Richard Williams played the song out of E position in standard tuning, pitched around F. The song has an unusual structure, with a 16-bar "verse" that opens the form, and an 8-bar bridge that concludes each pass through the form. I find a fair bit of this really hard to catch, and would very much appreciate help.

The train she ride, don't you know, is stoppin' here (Spoken: Tell the truth)
Train she ride, don't you know is stoppin' here
Some old rainy day, I look behind the train
Down the old CP

Take me girl, try me girl
I"m down here grievin', honey, about my babe

I want a good girl called Katy Cline
I wants my lovin' babe, honey, so bad
Dreamed last night you know, 'bout my girl of mine
I'm [out the door?, she ain't got no home?]

Right near, good gal, set on my knee
So let me tell you, honey, on your way

I wanna go further on down the road
Wanna go further on down the road
When Old Forty blow, [right up close, your door?]
Farewell, CP, honey, I'm gone

Take me, babe, try me
[It don't know]

I wanna go, further down the --
Wanna go, further on down the road
[                       ?]
[            ] never been before

All best,
Johnm

 

[Old Man Ned]

I'd never come across Richard Williams before but am enjoying the tunes on the link. Thanks Stuart. He has a really relaxed vocal behind his playing on 'Old Forty'

If it's any help John and for what it's worth, this is what I'm hearing:

On the last line of the 3rd verse I'm hearing
"I'm out the door, she be coming back no more"

For the last 2 lines of the final verse I'm picking up
"Ask for a dime......?
Out the door.....before"

All the Best,
Ned

[Stuart]

Hi Ned: Thanks go to John for this, not me. I may have contributed to the earlier thread when "Drop On Down In Florida" was released, but regardless, John deserves the thanks.

[Johnm]

And I'll pass the credit along to JoeCigueno, who found and posted the link to the Richard Wiliams recordings. I would have been unaware of them otherwise.

[JoeCigueno]

When I made my first pass thru Dust to Digital’s Drop On Down In Florida, I really liked Richard Williams, and was happy to stumble across more recordings of him on the Florida folklife website. In the book that goes with CDs, Dwight DeVane transcribed the key lyric as:

When the Old 40 blow, run and close your door
Farewell, farewell baby I’m gone

In another verse he follows the 'close the door' line with
Down the road, down the road, baby, I’m gone

The internal (approximate) rhyme between blow and door is nice, and when I sing this one that’s the lyric I use. It seems kind of iconic for a song of this type. It’s such a pretty song, I can imagine it being sung by by folkies in Greenwich Village in the ‘60s. It reminds me a little of Norah’s Dove / Dink's Song, which also has farewell / fare thee well in the refrain. To my ears, Old 40 sits in the sweet spot between a blues and a folk song with a refrain.  Actually there are a bunch of pretty ‘fare thee well’ songs, like the one Joe Callicott did.

Dwight DeVane made the home recordings of Richard Williams in ‘78 (there’s a great picture with him and Moses Williams, another artist they recorded, from 1977), and he wrote a section of the notes for the D2D book/CD set in 2012. Like JohnM says, the song is a ‘loosely assembled old country blues song’ which ‘achieves structural coherence through imagery and emotional impact, rather than through textual form or narrative detail.’

I love D2D productions, and this is one of my favorites. Also on this collection is a great version of Old Time Rounders by Emmett Murray, which was the subject of Miller Breakdown #53 in 2014.