August 2000
I’ve been finding it difficult, though not entirely necessary, to get the opening track out of my head. "The Hard Country" opens with a fiddle lick that really grabs you -- courtesy of Stuart Duncan, who kindly introduces the subsequent verses with similar licks and enters and exits throughout. Drums by Stuart Gunter and bass by Andy Waldeck, who provide a solid rhythm section on most of the tracks, support Linda Williams’ straightforward lead vocal, Robin Williams’ acoustic guitar, and electric guitar by John Jennings, famed for his work with Mary Chapin Carpenter. I especially enjoy that song’s refrain: "I’m stuck in the hard, The Hard Country/With just the devil for company/Of all the places I could be/I’m stuck in the hard, The Hard Country." Where is the singer "stuck"? Not necessarily in San Quentin or on Capitol Hill -- two places that come to mind as being worthy of the song’s title -- but in the "place" any human being might find him- or herself in when difficulty arises. "Sometime Tomorrow" also displays the Williamses’ knack for capturing experience of loss and the isolation it engenders. "I’ll get over her sometime tomorrow/In the meantime let me pass by/Pardon me if I move a little slow …." The refrain: "I believe I will go upriver/I will seek no earthly prize/I’ll be no part of anything/I will wear the clothes of a traveler/I will not meet your eyes/I’ll be the last toll the night bells ring." Whew! Luckily, the next one, "So Long, See You Tomorrow," involves a bit less despair. Some of the lines at first listen seem to suggest the song is another about lost love, but it’s about saying goodbye for the night. "At the end of one more day/My weary soul stripped bare/Just before sleep carries me away/I reach out to know you’re there." There’s a touching note of honesty here that many complaining, whining, or boasting love songs by lesser writers sometimes lack. "I’ve not been the best of friends/I’ve not always held to what’s true/I was not who I could have been/I hid myself from you." According to the refrain, redemption and renewal are possible, such as earthly life offers them: "So long, see you tomorrow/In a morning free from sorrow/Where forgiving winds blow/Clouds from the rainbow/So long, see you tomorrow." That is one of the two songs to which Mary Chapin Carpenter adds her pleasant voice. Tim O’Brien, who plays fiddle and mandolin on three of the album’s tracks, really hops in "Bar Band in Hillbilly Heaven" -- as one might hope in a peppy bluegrass elegy to great musicians of the past and a musician who isn’t dead yet but is running himself into the ground singing "a thousand hillbilly songs" in "a hundred blood bucket dives." As if to echo yet transcend "The Hard Country," which opens the CD, the title song wraps things up with the singer "driving straight on through the night" rather than being "stuck." "Oh you wild and rolling rivers/Roaring as the warm air quivers/You highways full of dreams and danger/Keeping me in the company of strangers/Keeping me in the company of strangers." Since releasing their first CD in 1975, Robin & Linda Williams have put in plenty of time with strangers. Maybe, like me, after hearing In the Company of Strangers, you, too, will want to be among the strangers gazing at them when they appear in your town. GO BACK TO: |
Robin & Linda Williams - In the Company of Strangers
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Robin
& Linda Williams’ new CD, In the Company of Strangers, makes me want to
become more familiar with their large body of work spanning the last quarter-century, as I
have only heard a handful of their songs here and there. This collection suggests a few
good reasons why Garrison Keillor’s radio show A Prairie Home Companion made
the Williamses longtime repeat guests: the rustic folk sound, the blend of bluegrass with
folk and even rock influences, the keen sense of what makes for an enjoyable performance,
including the absence of self-indulgence. In the Company of Strangers offers
something more, too: vocal and instrumental backup by Tim O’Brien, Mary Chapin
Carpenter and several other fine, experienced professional performers.