Robert Pete Williams
Free Again

If one had to use a single word to define the musical style of Robert Pete Williams, that word could be: primitive.
Yes, because Williams' country blues leaves no room for escape; it is dry, hard, and raw, with such authority that it may prove challenging for a blues newcomer. Pete doesn't make music to please the audience; for him, music is the most authentic way to strike into the listener's soul and to come to terms with himself and the world.
He began reckoning with these terms in 1956, when, accused of killing a man during a brawl, he ended up in the Angola penitentiary in Louisiana. Williams always maintained that he killed the man in self-defense, but he was not believed. In '58, while still in prison, thanks to Harry Oster and Richard Allen, two ethnomusicologists, he began recording his first songs, later included in the beautiful album "Those Prison Blues," which would, however, be printed only in 1963. At the beginning of 1959, Pete was released but with the obligation to work on a farm in exchange for just room and board. Despite the hard work and the strict rules of parole, in 1960 Williams recorded an album for Prestige/Bluesville titled with an emblematic and cynically ironic name, namely this "Free Again," the album contains all traditional songs, but rearranged in a decidedly personal manner by Robert.
Already with the beautiful title track that opens the album, Williams unveils his cavernous, timeless singing, while his acoustic guitar has a delicate and refined sound, yet simultaneously sharp and penetrating; his six strings rarely repeat a phrase in the same way, always seeking to infuse a precise character into each note he plays.
Among the best examples of his way of playing, for me, are the splendid "Almost Dead Blues" and "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere." In this latter song, Robert lets us understand how difficult it is for him to escape the condition of a prisoner because it is also a state of mind.
Another of my favorite tracks is "Thumbing a Ride," with its dusty and ghostly sound, where Pete roams the streets of a city but feels invisible to others.
The album also fell into the hands of Captain Beefheart, and he was so struck by the sound that in his "Safe as Milk" from '67, he included a great version of "I've Grown So Ugly" from this LP.
With "Free Again," Williams creates an album that gives no escape: heartbreaking, desolate, and bitter, revealing a solitary soul intent on liberating all the ghosts that stir within.
Not an easy album, as I said at the beginning, and not for everyone, but if you manage to enter Robert's suffering poetry, it will touch you deeply.