“The last couple winters have beenreally hard, with long periods of snow and cold, and these songs came fromthat,” Williams says. “One of the songs in particular, ‘Mockingbird,’ waswritten from the perspective of sitting in my house, looking outside, knowingthat if I went outside I would have to shovel.”
On that song, Williams gazes out thewindow, pining for spring’s thaw, but once it arrives he longs for the drynessof summer, then following that the colors of fall. That restlessness runsthrough the entire album, a collection of songs that are always either lookingtoward the future or dwelling on the past, but are never content with thepresent. Williams sings them with a heavy whiff of resignation, and his band’ssparse arrangements further underscore the melancholy.
“At first listen, a lot of people willprobably consider these sad songs, but I don’t think of them that way,”Williams says. “They’re just contemplative. There’s a certain whimsical,wistful longing to them, and the songs ask a lot of questions. With the titletrack, I wrote it just before we recorded it, and I didn’t even know what itmeant thenI just knew it was lonesome. Now I know that it’s about people andpromises, and what happens when they don’t follow through with them.”
With an understated rootsiness thatrecalls Townes Van Zandt, Cotton Bellachieves a warm, natural sound. Most songs were recorded in just a few takes atproducer Jon Christopher Hughes’ home studio in Bay View. The sessions weredeliberately loose and unscripted.
“I’m always excited about whatrecording live can do,” Williams says. “Depending on the mood or how you feel,it can take you in different places, and make you try things you wouldn’tnormally try.”
Williams’ last album, 2007’s Another Sailor’s Dream, earned thesinger some strong press in Europe, where there’s a great demand for Americana. He tries totour there every year or so.
“In Europethey’re just so ravenous about this kind of music, and even in little townsthey come out to see it,” Williams says. The problem with dedicating much ofhis efforts overseas, he concedes, is “I probably haven’t been that great aboutpromoting myself back home.”
Williams hopes to change that with Cotton Bell. He’s planning more regionaltour dates this spring, but first he’ll release the album with a show Friday,Feb. 26, at the Skylight Opera Theatre, for a rare singer-songwriterperformance at the gilded venue.
“I wanted the release show to besomething special, and I figured the venue would put the audience in a certainmind-set,” Williams says. “I think it will add a certain amount of gravitas tothe show.”
The $15 admission to the performanceincludes a copy of the album.
