Davey Williams

Davey J. Williams (1952, York, Alabama – April 5, 2019) was an American free improvisation and avant-garde music guitarist. In addition to his solo work, he was noted for his membership in Curlew and his collaborations with LaDonna Smith.

Biography Williams began playing guitar when he was 12. He played in rock bands in high school, and studied with blues musician Johnny Shines from the late 1960s until 1971. In the early 1970s Williams played in the University of Alabama B Jazz Ensemble and the Salt & Pepper Soul Band. He also started working with LaDonna Smith around this time, and founded a musical ensemble and recording project called Transmuseq. He toured the U.S. and Europe in 1978. In the early 1980s he worked in a blues band called Trains in Trouble. In 1986 Williams joined Curlew, who released several albums on Cuneiform Records in the 1990s.

In the 1980s he also worked with Col. Bruce Hampton and OK, Nurse, and in the early 1990s played in a punk rock band called Fuzzy Sons. Williams played in an improvisational three-piece called Say What?, and worked with Jim Staley and Ikue Mori. Williams appeared live at some 1,500 concerts worldwide.

Williams co-founded The Improviser, a journal of experimental music, in 1981. He also worked as a music critic for the Birmingham News and published freelance criticism elsewhere.

Williams died in Birmingham, Alabama on April 5, 2019, from cancer.

Discography Trans with LaDonna Smith, Theodore Bowen, Timothy Reed, Jim Hearon, [TransMuseq] 1977 Raudelunas Pataphysical Revue [Say Day Bew] 1979 Folk Music, LaDonna Smith, Ted Bowen, [TransMuseq] 1978 Jewels with Anne LeBaron, LaDonna Smith, [TransMuseq] 1979 Two Thousand Statues [John Zorn] -The English Channel [Eugene Chadbourne] 1977-1978 School [John Zorn] with LaDonna Smith, Eugene Chadbourne [Parachute] 1979 Velocities with LaDonna Smith, Andrea Centazzo, 1979 Direct Waves with LaDonna Smith, 1980 USA Tour with Andrea Centazzo, LaDonna Smith, [Ictus] 1980 Ham Days with Udo Bergner, Herbert Janssen, Torsten Muller, LaDonna Smith [Fremuco Records] 1981 Alchemical Rowdies with LaDonna Smith. Pippin Barnett, Danny Finney, Paul Watson, [TransMuseq] 1982 White Earth Streak with LaDonna Smith, Gunter Christmann, [TransMuseq] 1983 Song of Aeropteryx, with LaDonna Smith, Hal Rammel, [TransMuseq]1983 Criminal Pursuits, solo guitar improvisations [TransMuseq] 1985 Locales for Ecstasy with LaDonna Smith, Cinnie Cole, [TransMuseq] 1987 Dix Improvisations with LaDonna Smith, [Victo 1989] Travellers with LaDonna Smith [TransMuseq] 1990 the Aerial #2, with LaDonna Smith [Non Sequitor] 1990 Say What! with Steve Noble, Oren Marshall, 1992 Slide Crazy [Sky Ranch 1992] Transmutating with LaDonna Smith, [TransMuseq] 1993 A Confederacy of Dances, with LaDonna Smith [Einstein Records] 1994 Northern Dancer with Jim Staley, Ikue Mori, 1996 Tarot or Aorta memories of a PRE festival with LaDonna Smith [smackshire] 1996 I Scream [goldplo-limited edition-atlanta] 1997 Charmed, I'm Sure [Ecstatic Peace] 1997 Carbon [Table of the Elements] 1997 Texas Was Delicious (Megalon Records, 2000) Humdinger [ Atavistic Records] 2001 Numb Right [Megalon] 2002 Antenna Road [TransMuseq] 2008 Cooking With Dynamite! - Hawk Tubley & The Airtight Chiefs 2011 Halcyon Days with Andrea Centazzo, LaDonna Smith [Ictus] 2011 Sequana Sessions with LaDonna Smith [TransMuseq] 2015 Fresh Dirt Submergence! Sympatica [Fresh Dirt] 2016 More Requia, In Memory of Great Ancestors Henry Kaiser [Metalanguage] 2020