Local Exposure: Karl Williams •

Local Exposure
CD Reviews of Area Musicians

From One Millenium To Another
Karl Williams

by Jason Timoll

“Please excuse our having to write this song in English. We’ve got a new single but Karl Williams called “To the New Century,” a celebration of the millennium with toasts to the event in 17 languages from around the world.“ This is what you would read were you to get the Internet public relations message being sent across the world to promote the latest CD, From One Millenium To Another, by local legend Karl Williams. While this signature song does feature 17 different languages, this is, along the order of Mark Knopfler, a rock-based song on a rock-sounding CD. It’s just in full linguistic color.

Born in Baltimore, Williams lived in many places before settling in the Harrisburg metropolitan area. An activist and an acclaimed print and music writer, Williams has made himself familiar with enough folks, ‘in the know,’ that he was not intimidated by the idea of marketing this CD around the world. In 1998,Williams found himself on the list of Grammy nominations for his song “Respect: Songs of the Self Advocacy Movement.” The CD was recorded with the National Self Advocacy Movement, an organization that supports people with developmental disabilities. Williams has written a book that has been marketed for a screenplay that portrays the life account of a person with developmental disabilities speaking of his experience living in inadequate and negligent institutions. Also to his credit, Williams has recorded on the Flying Fish and Rounder record labels. It is with these life experiences that he brings this offering to the world at a time that it may be of greatest use to us.

The album, From One Millenium to Another, is an acknowledgement of sorts of one of the most anticipated events of this lifetime. The album asks us to celebrate and reflect, but also to be thoughtful of how we can most be of service to others — by celebrating our diversity and by living our lives without relying as much on commercialism and narcissism. When talking to Williams, he said, “People are too often looking to people outside themselves to save them.”

This sentiment is heard in an interpersonal way in the “Tammy Song” where the story line reflects a young woman who is in such need of approval by a man, that she finds herself in very unhealthy company. And why wait till the millennium to fix our errant ways, you ask? It strikes me from listening to the single off of the album that it is a natural opportunity. It has long been an American tradition to give something up for the New Year. The turn of the millennium seems an ideal time to cleanse. Perhaps such traditions exist around the world, and collectively the world might take a very subtle, possibly unnoticed, step forward.

The consummate “uniter,” Williams found himself in the library of the University of Pennsylvania, looking through the phone book for obviously foreign names to include in his celebratory single. Likewise, the presence of many cultural names exist throughout “To the New Century.” The second line sings, “Francoise Pierre runs across a thoroughfare near san Michele, Willy Coulter shrugs his shoulders tells his boss to go to hell, Senior Santopietro in San Pelayo is kneeling down to pray, Mrs. Cortland wants to move to Portland but we’re all headed one way.”

This single and the rest of this album could not be more timely or complete. The recording was done at the Greenroom in Harrisburg and produced by Williams and Robert C. Welsh. The players, while diverse, included some of the usual suspects — Rej Troupe III (Martini Bros.) on the beat; John Fritchey on guitars; Matt Thompson (Robert Reilly Band) on piano; Bob welsh on bass; Rodney Gatling, Becky Miller, Braydon Wiley on supporting vocals chorus, and of course, Williams himself leading the ceremony on lead vocals.

This project is in rotation on Radio FM 99 (Lithuania), Radio Emmen (Netherlands), The Park (Austin, Texas) and many other stations around the world. The single can be heard on both www.mp3.com and karlwilliams.com.

Tell a friend and remember to bring your best self to this new Millenium.