Andrew Bird Whistles A Lot (this post is about Andre Williams, though)

Starting off tonight's late-ish post with the title's observation. I'm entering the Andrew Bird portion of the A-Z project. It will mark the first three plus album segment of the project. I'm interested to see how this plays out. I have a lot of admiration for Andrew Bird, if not for the only reason that he was a teacher at The Old Town School of Folk Music, which is one of my favorite places in my favorite city. I like his music, but have never listened to this much of it all at once, so the jury's still out on just how much I like it. I do look forward to the playing of "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left", though. Such a great song!

This post isn't about Andrew Bird, though, even though I put his name in the title. Let me fix that. Please pause for about 10 seconds so you can get the proper effect of me fixing that error. Okay, thanks for that. Resume reading.

Andre Williams. Probably a name, you, my vast audience isn't very familiar with. I've got to admit, it's a name that I only recently became familiar with. In fact, I saw him perform at SXSW 2008, and yet it was only after hearing a couple of iTunes songs today and doing some Wikipedia research, that I fully began to realize the importance and brilliance of this man's music.

So the song that kicked off the way too short Andre Williams segment, was called "Humpin', Bumpin', and Thumpin'". If that doesn't speak volumes alone about the nature of rock and roll, I don't know what does! This is classic '60s rock/soul. Think Booker T. and the MG's with an edge. Williams actually wrote one of Stevie Wonder's earliest hits and was one of the largely unsung pioneers of early rock and soul, both on the writing and performing front.

Nicknamed both "Mr. Rhythm" and "The Black Godfather", Williams at one time was homeless on the streets of Chicago, only to rebound with forrays into "Sleaze rock" (???) and country, eventually finding his way back to his roots. A documentary entiltled "Agile Mobile Hostile: A year with Andre Williams" documents the highs and lows of his life and musical career, from his early success with Fortune Records to his struggles with drug and alcohol in the 1980s. I haven't seen the doc, but believe me, I'll be making a point to remedy that soon.

I saw him perform on a hot Austin day at a Bloodshot Records party at SXSW, back in 2008. Here was this older African American man, unapologetically calling out the fact that there were more white people in attendence than he was used to at his shows. Yet regardless of the audience, he played one hell of a show. If you perform a song called "Bad Motherfucker", you better deliver the goods. And oh hell yes, did Mr. Williams ever deliver the goods. This was raw, brutal, life-affirming rock and roll/soul/R&B (whatever you may call it these days) at it's best! This was the year I saw Lou Reed perform, but along with The Ting Tings, Ezra Furman, and Justin Townes Earle, Andre Williams overshadowed the grumpy old punk himself, proving that the history and present state of music, is a tad more complex than perhaps we realize.

Andre Williams' music is music for late nights and places that you shouldn't be at when it's 3AM. But if you're gonna be there, you might as well get it right. It's dirty, it's honest, it's bare boned, get-your-pulse rockin' music! Isn't the subversiveness of it all what the music's all about anyway?

Click on the title of this post for the official trailer of "Agile, Mobile, Hostile"