of old-school form and new school technique. Aside from his apprenticeship with Mr. Shines, he was also a key member of the Raudelunas art collective (whose album Raudelunas 'Pataphysical Revue was named by The Wire as one of the "100 Records That Set The World On Fire While No One Was Listening"), a co-founder of independent record label Trans Museq, and an important architect of the unholy sound of Alabama's Rev. Fred Lane. Along with his longtime musical partner/foil LaDonna Smith, he has played on stages around the globe and collaborated with the likes of John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Andrea Centazzo, Tom Cora, Jim Staley, Gustavo Matamoros, Roger Turner, Anne LeBaron, the Shaking Ray Levis, Col. Bruce Hampton, Oteil Burbridge, Gunter Christmann, and Mark Kramer. As a member of the trailblazing avant-jazz/funk band Curlew, he was one of the most respected players on the "Downtown" music scene that revolved around the Knitting Factory in New York City in the late-80's and early-90's, and added insanely inventive guitar lines to that band's impressive body of work. From 1987-89 he was a free-lance music critic for the Birmingham News and in 1990 he served on an advisory panel to the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then he has published a cartoon book entitled "Which Came First?: The Fried Chicken or the Fried Egg?" and was recently selected to participate in John Zorn's Arcana book series with his piece "Solo Gig: Essential Curiosities in Musical Free Improvisation."
Founding editor of the
improvisor, Davey Williams
is one of the most unique musical figures to have ever come from
the state of Alabama. Considered one of the "three founding
fathers of American free improvisational guitar" (along with
Henry Kaiser and Eugene Chadbourne), he is the only
person to ever successfully- and honestly- bridge the gap
between the disparate worlds of Robert Johnson and Sun Ra. As a
19-year-old protege of the late Delta and Chicago blues master
Johnny Shines (himself a protege of Robert Johnson and
Howlin' Wolf), Davey lived a formative musical experience that
more well known personalities like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton,
and Jimmy Page could only dream about. Mastering the slide steel
stylings of his teacher, Davey expounded on the form by taking
the blues in directions few knew it could go or dare try.
Dubbing his style "convulsive blues," he has quietly
blown minds around the world through his unique deployment