Search - Robert Pete Williams :: Free Again

With a Tombstone For a Pillow & an Outaw for musical genius

Anita Fix | Alcazar in the Land of Enchantment | 10/21/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"ROBERT PETE WILLIAMS is THEE most "original" of the originals, an murderous Outlaw amongst musical genius's who has saved my life repeatedly as the constant woes that befell such a man as He, woes that have been contemporary man's as well as mine: government confinement, Police & legal brutality, Narcotica and addiction and of course the deadly "Butcher-girls of Love" that befalls us all in a life of loneliness and sorrow...this is the album that Cap't Beefheart heard in the 60's and repeated the call of "I've Grown So Ugly" on his early recordings---which exemplifies its historical wondrousness which it needs none as this is one of Robert Pete's best...Dr. Harry Oster: you are to be championed for recognizing the musical genius of this falsely addressed Angola Murderer and I address you if you be alive still, to give my small token tribute as Robert is dead but remains an immortal because of your efforts which Set him free via the Governor of Louisiana or at least Angola: a prison which had no boundaries but an fathomless bog, alligator ridden and riddled with poisonous snakes (which Rob Pete was "afraid of them thangs!"), much less the convict codes even such a musical wizard had to follow in what was not a wizard's harem by any means save condemnation...still Robert Pete played the local 12-string his Leadbelly's Father purchased and funded decades previously in the same prison for the prisoners and solely so his son could play and rejoice in the gift God granted him which is so obvious and evident and championed on ANYThING tHEy recorded and I feel the futility of singing tHEir praises but do so anyway as no one else is stepping up for the duty which calls with all the might of a Religious conversion's duty...for I owe everything to Robert Pete Williams, I mean, how else was I to realize how a man could express himself musically beyond all limitation and boundary set by one's own mind...he truly set the bird of his hands and heart free and sung with all the earnest and angst of a genuine Black Orpheus, may all the blessings music can give fall upon him! O, I would love to see some scholarly mathematical "critic" try and display on paper in musical lingo what he did! ...as the 'Jester Ruthless'(my best friend) says he simply "WOMPS ON IT!" which sums up all the Bluesmen's wilderness if they ever can be captured for even a fleeting moment beside that of the personal midnight; the Dark Night of the Soul...for their music seems like prayers to me and not just to get out of work, for Rob Pete's seriousness shines through even amidst all the Songster innuendo and wastrel analogy...and if you have never heard him you take only a small risk that you shall be amazed regardless what the type of music you admire, for he is as immortal as Shakespeare when it comes to sheer beatitude & Poetics which shall inspire millions or me and Jesse at least forever... what can I say but holler an "Amen" to the recordings and the recorders,and please, release all he recorded I beg you, it shall ever be enough, amen!"

This Rocks!

Brian D. Hackert | Peterborough, NH | 04/03/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Please consider this a second opinion to the customary evaluations of Robert Pete Williams's music. I was working on many things to say about this album, but I'll just get to the bottom line: this rocks! My expectations when I ordered this, based on everything I'd read, were very different than my actual listening experience, but I was not disappointed. I found this very accessible, with popular blues and rock style hooks and riffs, complemented with mid-tempo rhythms and chord combinations that are unique and creative in a modern rootsy singer/songwriter kind of way. My main reaction is to dance, and I'm mesmerized by the guitar work. I would compare Robert Pete Williams to Hound Dog Taylor before any of the usual country blues people, and I can't help wishing some promoter or producer had handed Williams an electric guitar and turned up the volume."

Extreme Weariness

Daniel B. Pepper | New York | 02/28/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There is an extreme weariness to this album. Robert Pete Williams obviously experienced a harsh and brutal life at Angola Penitentiary. The songs on this album range from very good to gripping in their sheer intensity. The reason that I am giving this album four stars is that I enjoy the guitar work, and the variety of the guitar work, on Williams' "The Sonet Blues Story", and, especially, "I'm As Blue As A Man Can Be", which is my favorite Williams album thus far, much more. I would like to state that one of the songs on this album- I believe it to be "I've Grown So Ugly"- sounds a great deal like the music James Brown and his band would make later in the decade (the 1960s). My friend pointed this out to me and I was shocked. I have not seen this written or spoken about anywhere else, and it is highly unlikely that Williams was inspired by a popular artist like Brown, who had not yet recorded in the style we know him for, back in 1960 when "Free Again" was recorded!"