Founding editor of the improvisor, DAVEY WILLIAMS is one of the most unique musical figures to have ever come from the state of Alabama. Considered one of the "three founding fathers of American free improvisational guitar" (along with Henry Kaiser and Eugene Chadbourne), he is the only person to ever successfully- and honestly- bridge the gap between the disparate worlds of Robert Johnson and Sun Ra. As a 19-year-old protege of the late Delta and Chicago blues master Johnny Shines (himself a protege of Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf), Davey lived a formative musical experience that more well known personalities like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page could only dream about. Mastering the slide steel stylings of his teacher, Davey expounded on the form by taking the blues in directions few knew it could go or dare try. Dubbing his style "convulsive blues," for the past 40 years he has quietly blown minds around the world through his unique combination of old-school form and new school technique.

Aside from his apprenticeship with Mr. Shines, Davey was also a key member of the Raudelunas art collective (whose album Raudelunas 'Pataphysical Revue was named by The Wire as one of the "100 Records That Set The World On Fire While No One Was Listening"), a co-founder of independent record label TransMuseq, and an important architect of the unholy sound of Alabama's Rev. Fred Lane. Along with his longtime musical partner/foil LaDonna Smith, he has played on stages around the globe and collaborated with the likes of John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Andrea Centazzo, Tom Cora, Jim Staley, Gustavo Matamoros, Roger Turner, Anne LeBaron, the Shaking Ray Levis, Col. Bruce Hampton, Oteil Burbridge, Gunter Christmann, and Mark Kramer. As a member of the trailblazing avant-jazz/funk band Curlew, he became one of the most respected players on the "Downtown" music scene that revolved around the Knitting Factory in New York City in the late-80's and early-90's, and added insanely inventive guitar lines to that band's impressive body of work. From 1987-89 he was a free-lance music critic for the Birmingham News and in 1990 he served on an advisory panel to the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then he has published a cartoon book entitled "Which Came First?: The Fried Chicken or the Fried Egg?" and was recently selected to participate in John Zorn's Arcana book series with his piece "Solo Gig: Essential Curiosities in Musical Free Improvisation."   

DAVEY WILLIAMS will be performing with Henry Kaiser, Andrea Centazzo, Chris Cochrane, and Oteil Burbridge at the Magic City Meltdown at Workplay on Aug. 6; at Dixie Fried at the Bottletree on Aug. 13; at Pepper Place on Aug. 14; and at the Black Belt Folk Roots Festival in Eutaw, AL on Aug. 28.