The virtuoso finger-style guitar of Yasmin Williams
Monday reading #44
Monday Reading is my weekly recommendation of something I’ve found thought-provoking or fascinating. Sometimes it is about something I have read. Sometimes it is about television or food or music or projects I care about supporting. Sometimes I do not send it on Monday. Please share with anyone who might like the vibes!
I have in the past recommended the songs I listen to on repeat while receiving ketamine treatments. Many favorites seem to have come to me through, like, the Spotify algorithm, which is embarrassing, but in my defense I’ve been gently high when it’s happened. Only rarely do I make the leap to listening to the rest of an artist’s work, but today I wanted to tell you about one of my exceptions: the multi-instrumental finger-style guitarist and composer Yasmin Williams.
Williams got started by playing the video game Guitar Hero 2 as an eighth grader, but quickly moved beyond it—she released an EP of her original songs two years later. One of her trademarks is setting an acoustic guitar in her lap, tuning the strings in harmony, and finger-picking, but she also plays the kalimba (she attaches one to her guitar and plays both at once!), banjo, kora, and harp-guitar, experiments with stringed instrument bows, and wears tap shoes in order to add percussion on some songs. I saw her at the Evanston Folk Festival this year; she’s incredible to watch. (Here’s a video of her playing Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” on banjo and bones.1)
Anyway, I first heard “Juvenescence” from Urban Driftwood during a ketamine treatment and thought “what is this beautiful sunshower of a song!” (There is also a song called “Sunshowers” on the album, but it wasn’t the one I heard, I swear.)
“Juvenescence” is also the first song in her NPR Tiny Desk set from 2021, where you can see her disinctive playing style:
All of this is a preamble to sharing a song from her new record Acadia, “Cliffwalk,” which features Dom Flemons, an original member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, on rhythm bones; he played with her at the Evanston Folk Fest show in August.
I don’t listen to this one during ketamine, but I have listened to it most mornings in lieu of post-election NPR. Strongly recommended.
See you soon!
PS: In response to the very reasonable question “what’s up with this newsletter,” I’m … working on it, in spite of (?) my fractured spine. If you are a paid subscriber, thank you. It makes a very big difference to me. I’d love to send you a copy of “Jail on Wheels.”
A few weeks after she recorded this, she also published an opinion piece she wrote for The Guardian critiquing how Beyonce engages with Black vernacular music history on Cowboy Carter. A great analysis and a big risk!
synchronicity! I just saw Yasmin W in the NPR albums of 2024 roundup minutes before this popped up in the inbox.