With the death of
John Fahey
,
Brooks Williams
was well situated to take the mercurial maestro's place as the most idiosyncratic acoustic guitarist around. 2005's
Guitar Player
, however, is the first album on which
Williams
truly lets all of his influences and musical interests find free expression.
' first entirely instrumental album,
is 16 tracks long, evenly split between originals and covers. It's not just the variety of sources tapped for these covers -- from
Johann Sebastian Bach
's
"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"
to
Luiz Bonfa
"Gentle Rain,"
through a version of the Broadway
standard
"Some Other Time"
that seems to take its cues from
Bill Evans
' contemplative take on the tune -- it's the way that
brings elements of
classical
music,
bossa nova
, the Great American Songbook, and modern
jazz
to his
folk
-based musical style no matter what he's playing. Though his style isn't as personal and inimitable as
Fahey
's, a tall order for any instrumentalist,
is well on his way to creating a similarly impressive body of work. ~ Stewart Mason