Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams | All This Time
(Royal Potato Family Records)
As a wannabe multi-instrumentalist, even thinking about Larry Campbell makes my head hurt. The word monster comes to mind. He’s just that good. In league with his wife, terrific singer-guitarist and musical theater star Teresa Williams, Campbell’s many strengths come to the fore. The couple’s latest release, All This Time—their fourth—is a strutting Americana exercise, which, like their departed pal Levon Helm’s work, at once defines the genre and explodes it. R&B and country merge effortlessly here in numbers like “Ride with Me,” “I Think About You,” and the chiming-but-tough title track, all of them with deep, sultry grooves decorated not only by matrimonial harmonies but by Campbell’s seemingly effortless electric guitar work.(It doesn’t hurt that some of his time was spent by Bob Dylan’s side.)
Campbell, who produced the album, also plays mandolin, acoustic guitar, steel guitar, and bass here. And Mr. Helm’s drums are heard on “That’s All It Took”—yes, the George Jones/Gene Pitney single covered by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris—which also features lovely Nashville piano from Little Feat keysman Billy Payne. Keyboardist Brian Mitchell, bassist Brandon Morrison, and drummer/recording engineer Justin Guip complete the band. Other key tracks include covers of Julie Miller’s plainspoken “I Love You” (replete with a dazzling Campbell solo) and Jesse Colin Young’s, stately, album-closing “The Pretty and The Fair,” which is drenched in duet vocals and gorgeous pedal steel washes.
This article appears in June 2024.
