Jazz-influenced Rock: Hayward Williams' Uphill/Downhill

Tipped off by a friend who saw him play live in Milwaukee, I asked Hayward Williams to send me a CD to review. Living up to my friend’s thoughts, Williams appears to be bit of a John Mayer from Wisconsin while having a strong sense of 60’s folk and country jam blues.

On his album, Uphill/Downhill, the jazzy swoops of “Wear Me Out” is where the John Mayer sound shows up. With slide guitar and banjo coming in, though, Williams takes a step towards jazz-influenced Country rock—sort of like the meeting Norah Jones in the middle. Norah Jones’ first album, Come Away with Me, was more jazz than rock, and Mayer remained on the rock side of the Jazz-influenced Rock category. With Jones’ second release, Feels Like Home, she slipped more country into the rock, sliding away from the jazz standard feel and more towards the broader rock side of things. That’s where she meets Williams moving towards Mayer.

Williams is there ready to play some jazz-styled rock guitar with Mayer, but still holding onto the jazz standard sound in his piano-led ballads like “My Swift Love.” The piano chords that lead off the track recall the opening line of “One Was Johnny” from Carole King’s soundtrack to Maurie Sendak’s Really Rosie.

For the 60’s folk sound, choose your referents from the list: Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Donovan. The sound emerges on tracks like the hushed “Problems with Hemingway,” complete a little mourning Dylan harmonica.

Country jam blues comes on “Somebody,” which rocks with a soft snare beat, walking bass line, and Williams’s blues folk vocals. A picked acoustic guitar solo tops it off.

Uphill/Downhill opens with an acoustic guitar flourish like some James Taylor song. There’s that warmth you can find in Taylor’s music, but the lyric comes straight from some of the more folky country artists like the Good Sons/Michael Weston King. At one time, every singer/songwriter with an acoustic guitar was trying to be James Taylor. Williams, though, shows how you can recall some of the magic of Taylor without having to bleach out the sound to a 70’s wash. The sun comes up, warms your skin, but you’re seeing a new day as Williams sings his song with his sound on “Simply Put.”

Thanks to Hayward Williams for the review copy.