New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
Brooks Williams, considered one of the top 100 acoustic guitarists, will be featured as part of the Zeiterion’s On Stage Folk Café on Thursday, April 14, 2011. Showtime is at 7:30 P.M. Tickets are $15. Alan and Helene Korolenko, the Artistic Directors of the New Bedford Summerfest, are presenting these intimate evenings with the finest folk and acoustic performers. You will join Brooks Williams and future performers in the series right on the Zeiterion stage for an evening of great music. The Folk Café is sponsored by New England Medical Associates.
Brooks Williams is as diverse and versatile a musician as you are likely to encounter. He is quite simply one of the most entertaining and engaging performers on the circuit today. With bluesy fingerpicking, soaring bottleneck slide, and swinging flatpicking, Brooks Williams’ music is rooted in the blues, and is as fresh and original as any music you are likely to hear. His unique combination of traditional and original music inspired Rolling Stone Magazine to praise him for his, “Deft, tasteful guitar chops.”
His guitar skills won him a place on the Top 100 Acoustic Guitarists list, in company with the likes of Michael Hedges, Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke, Doc Watson and David Bromberg. Add to this his fine songwriting and powerful vocals and it is no wonder that The Boston Globe said simply “Whew! Can that boy play!”
Over the years Brooks Williams has recorded 17 albums. His newest, BABY O! is setting the musical world on fire with its foot-stomping, rootsy songs. This collection of originals and standards ranging from Williams’ original “Frank Delandry” about an all-but-forgotten New Orleans guitarist to Son House’s “Grinnin’ In Your Face”, done here with guitar, harmonica and stand-up bass is turning heads. Other groundbreaking titles in Williams’ discography include the best-selling roots/blues Knife Edge (1996), the instrumental gem Guitar Player (2005) and his acoustic tour-de-force Blues and Ballads (2006).
Now based in Cambridge, England, Brooks Williams continues to play everywhere from Dallas to London, Istanbul to Boston, Belfast to Toronto, and Detroit to Nairobi. He has gigged with Taj Mahal, John Hammond, Paul Jones, Billy Bragg, Little Feat, and Leo Kottke, amongst many others. He has performed at festivals around the world including the Kerrville Festival in Texas, the Winnipeg Folk Festival in Canada, the Newport Folk Festival and New Bedford Summerfest.
Join Brooks Williams on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 7:30 P.M. in the intimate setting of the On Stage Folk Café at the Zeiterion Theater, 684 Purchase Street, New Bedford, MA 02740. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased at the Zeiterion box office or online here. Become a fan of the On Stage Folk Café on Facebook.
