* Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams (at Bull Run Restaurant)
Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams
7-22-2016Multi-instrumentalist-vocalist Larry Campbell and singer-guitaristTeresa Williams have rocked many a venue, as both center stage performers and invaluable assets to world class acts. A shortlist of artists who’ve benefited from their talents, live and in studios, reads like a Who’s Who of Music Icons: Bob Dylan (Larry spent eight years on the Never Ending Tour), Paul Simon, Little Feat, Hot Tuna, Phil Lesh, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Mavis Staples, and, for one miraculous seven-year stretch, Levon Helm. Now, with an eponymous debut album, the couple brings it all back home. Larry and Teresa may have been simmering awhile, but the timing is perfect; the eleven tracks, produced by Campbell, distill everything into a potent, infectious blend of Americana style and timeless soul, offered with a relaxed generosity that can only come from rich experience.
The seeds for a duet project were unwittingly planted in their courting days, when Larry and Teresa sang and played with the locals under her great-great grandmother’s Tennessee cedar tree, the same one under which they married. (These gatherings continue to this day.) Later, when the duo was song-swapping all night with the band in the back of Bob Dylan’s tour bus, Dylan’s longtime manager Jeff Kramer told Larry he was crazy not to make hay with what they had as a duo. But their schedules kept the idea on the back burner until 2005, when Levon Helm called. He’d beaten cancer, was invigorated as never before, and was putting together a band for the soon-to-be legendary Midnight Ramblesat his barn-studio in Woodstock, NY. He wanted some Campbell-Williams mojo to help make the most of his surprise fourth act. This humble beginning – playing in a barn on a dirt road – inaugurated the greatest musical experience of Larry and Teresa’s lives.
Larry became the unflappable leader of the shape-shifting Midnight Ramble Band, earning three Grammysfor producing Levon’s final three CDs; Teresa, as an indispensable band member, frequently brought the house down. "Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams" is an extension of that time, featuring eight originals and three covers honed on the carpet of Levon’s barn, under the gaze of grateful fans. They not only bring a lot to the table, they bring the table itself – plus the house, the still, the church, the marriage bed, the sawdust-covered floor, and abiding, unconditional love, all carried in two voices harmonizing across hills, hollers, porches, and fire escapes. Those close harmonies ride atop music made in a mountain refuge, far from the madding crowd, connected to a spirit that lives on in song.
VIDEO
* Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams ...
Date and Time
Friday Jul 22, 2016
