Keller Williams

On Friday, February 24, the CCPA and KRVM welcome back Keller Williams for a solo show.

Prolific singer-songwriter and one-man band Keller Williams returns with a new batch of songs. In December Williams released Bass, his 17th album.

Starting with 1994’s Freek, Keller has done solo albums, live albums, one with The String Cheese Incident, another with Bob Weir, Michael Franti, Bela Fleck and a bunch of other personal heroes, a bluegrass covers album with Keller & The Keels, a children’s album, a remix album, and more. Here Keller shows off, you guessed it, his bass skills with his first record that finds the multi-instrumentalist only on bass guitar. Bass is also the first album to be recorded with Keller’s live reggae-funk band Kdubalicious. Formed in late 2010, in addition to Keller on bass and vocals, the group features Jay Starling on keyboards and Mark D on drums.

Though Keller’s music, both what he listens to and what he puts out, may always be changing and evolving, there’s always one constant: his unique, playful songwriting. Bass is no different in that regard. This may be reggae music — with heavy doses of dub, funk, jazz and even bits of pop and psychedelia — but at the core, it’s a Keller Williams record, his warm voice and equally inviting attitude driving the positive vibrations.

Most artists would bristle at the term self-indulgent, but Keller Williams often invokes it in describing his own approach to music. To Williams, being self-indulgent means creating music that satisfies him — if he likes what he’s produced, he figures, then his audience is more likely to embrace it too. If he’s not happy with it, why would they be?

“I’m a music lover first, a musician second and a songwriter third,” Williams says. “I love writing songs and I love performing my songs — almost all of them.”

Keller’s reputation has been built on his live performances, no two of which are ever alike. Most of his career has been spent performing as a one-man band — his stage shows are built around Keller singing his compositions and choice covers while accompanying himself with an acoustic guitar connected to a Gibson Echoplex delay system that allows him to simulate a full band. That approach, Williams explains, was derived from, “hours of playing solo with just a guitar and a microphone, and then wanting to go down different avenues musically. I couldn’t afford humans and didn’t want to step into the cheesy world of automated sequencers where you hit a button and the whole band starts to play, then you’ve got to solo along or sing on top of it. I wanted something more organic yet with a dance groove that I could create myself.”

Technology has allowed Williams to go out on tour week after week, year after year, and play music by himself — without limiting his sound to what we most often associate with the solo singer-songwriter: a guy strumming a guitar and singing. With his arsenal of tech toys, Williams can expand his reach onstage by, in essence, jamming with himself.

Unlike his live gigs, Williams has nearly always invited fellow musicians to contribute to his albums, and an alliance with String Cheese Incident led not only to Williams signing with the band’s label SCI Fidelity, but a collaborative effort on 1999’s Breathe album.

Keller’s thirst for music of all kinds has also led him to the world of children’s music. In 2010 he released Kids, his first children’s record, and toured with Yo Gabba Gabba! Live.