Jack Williams – Across The Winterline

The first real national exposure the fiftysomething Jack Williams received was for his participation as the second guitarist on Mickey Newbury’s Nights When I Am Sane (Winter Harvest, 1994). Like Newbury, Williams is a hard-to-peg songwriter whose songs encompass rock, blues, Stephen Foster, country waltzes and more.

Across The Winterline has the comfortable feel of a well-worn boot, sturdy and familiar. Maybe it is due to the intimate recording process — the album was done live in mandolin player Danny Harlow’s living room, with a group rounded out by bassist Cary Taylor, fiddler Robert Bowlin and backing vocalist Susan Douglass. The easy camaraderie with which the musicians embellish Williams’ performances testifies to the years they’ve spent playing together.

Williams’ songwriting provides a number of touching, genuine moments. “You’re The One” is a percolating, happy blues that revels purposefully in cliche to endearing effect. “The Old Buckdancer’s Gone” pays moving tribute to another South Carolinian, the late poet James Dickey. Williams executes a sprightly, humorous metaphor on the hopeless condition of being male in “Waterbug”.

As good a writer as Williams is, he’s a better singer, and player, in his own way. Not possessed of a soaring voice, he makes do with what he’s got, like Tom Waits if he hadn’t ruined his, or David Wilcox with a little more soul and a few more years on him. Just listen to “The Man In Me”, where Williams’ voice rises into a breaking falsetto on the successive choruses, echoing the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness trip through his travels back home. It’s an elegant moment on an album full of graceful and sincere music.