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JOE WILLIAMS



Joe Williams

Self Titled


Buy Now:

cdbaby
(http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/joewilliams)

Local Retailers


Downloads:

Music:

Three Squirrels
Pretzel Song
Deep Into Autumn
mp3 | wma
mp3 | wma
mp3 | wma

 

Video:

Three Squirrels
Daddy's Recliner
Mitsubishi Van
Roseanne
360x240 | 240x160
360x240
360x240
360x240

 


Acclaim:

"...this is real porch sittin' music. Such a generous, fun, authentic spirit comes through....it'll grows on you by leaps and bounds with each listening."

Jennifer Deer
Host, 'ArtVoice'
WABEfm90.1
Atlanta, GA

read more...


Lyrics:

Mustang Romeo
The Lone Cow of Pittsburgh
The Waltz
Too Deep Into Autumn
Nice & Slow
Ben and Jerry's
Hippies Jogging
Pretzel Song
Black and White Picture
Daddy's Recliner


Bio:

Joe Williams writes songs. Beautiful songs. Funny Songs. Songs that glide and play like a starlet on a first date. Simple songs with a full charming regalia of ill-advised rhymes and concocted words. Songs that chronicle a secret world of heroicly lost bovine, scared recliners, forgotten canoes, environmentally conscious sugar buzzes, hippie joggers, hesitating-darting-hesitating squirrels, and love. “I like to try and write romantically about unromantic things, like waking up cramped and entangled with your lover, with half your appendages asleep. Or kissing someone for the first time, doing it poorly and hoping they don't mind,” says Joe.

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Liner notes:

This album has taken several years to create, and it is an aboslute pleasure (and relief) to finally deliver the goods! The end result of so many months...

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Track commentary:

Three Squirrels:
I had set out to write a song in sort of a 'classic' folk song style of
working sequentially through something. In this case, squirrels. And I clearly remember writing these lyrics, sitting on a dilapidated red
pillow-chair-thing on the front porch of my home at that time: 506 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill, NC, directly across the street from the UNC Power Plant.

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Mustang Romeo:
All of the songs on this CD have some horribly autobiographical information embedded inside. And even though I've never owned a muscle car like Romeo here, I have definitely spent some years in this mode of living.

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Evolution:
Evolution takes an excruciatingly long time, and I'm lucky to have found someone willing to wait out the changes. These lyrics are pretty straight-forward, but here's a side note about how I arrived at writing this song. It seems like essayists and poets are always writing responses to other essayists' or poets' works, but you don't see much of that kind of thing in the music world.

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The Waltz:
Writing about waltzing is like a core requirement of folk songwriting. I recognized this obligation early on, and began working on my own waltz-related piece shortly after I started penning songs. I figured I'd just get this waltz requirement over with, then I could get back into writing about food and domesticated animals - my preferred electives. I came up with the musical framework for this song very quickly, and had the cadence of the lyrics in mind as I played. But I couldn't really write any lyrics that were satisfying. Versions, revisions and rewrites of this song began to fill notebooks over the course of a year. I was seriously stuck.

Read more...


Album info:

Joe Williams, Self-titled
2002, Banzai! Entertainment

Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by:
John Plymale, Mad Anthony productions

Mastered by:
Brent Lambert, Kitchen Mastering


Producer's notes:

Joe Williams…why did I produce a record for Joe? First, I love his music…which may sound stupid…I've been going to his shows for years and he wasn't selling any CDs I could take home and I wanted something for my collection.

The energy he spins, or I should say doesn't spin, when he plays live is wonderful. I remember reading a quote once where the reviewer liked it when the musician is able to get out of the way of the music and let the music become what it's supposed to without a personality behind it. Joe's music (and I guess humble personality) lives for me as an invitation to a being calm and playful at the same time. He's so non-intrusive that it's beautiful. -DW


Press Release:

Go to our Press Center to view the Press Release. Tell 'em Joe sent ya.


Local Retailers:

CD Alley
405 C West Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Phone: (919) 960-9272

Schoolkids
144 E. Franklin St.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Phone: (919) 960-9272

2316-104 Hillsborough St.
Raleigh, NC 27607
Phone: (919) 821-7766

Record Exchange
2302-106 Hillsborough Street
Raleigh, NC 27607
Phone: (919) 831-9666

Millenium Music
3131 Capital Blvd.
Raleigh, NC 27604
Phone: (919) 863-6707

Sam Goody
Crabtree Valley Mall
Raleigh, NC
Phone: (919) 571-1887

 




As Heard
on Car Talk