Music Assessment: Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams sing concerning the energy of affection on ‘All This Time’
LOS ANGELES — Drawing from private expertise, husband-and-wife duo Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams sing about first-rate romance on their newest collaborative album, “All This Time.”
Their marriage of 35 years — he from New York Metropolis and he or she from Peckerwood Level, Tennessee — had a partnership that was “love at first observe,’’ as Williams describes it, and has blossomed musically with the discharge of 4 duet albums. “All This Time” is the very best but, a rousing and romantic testomony to the ability of affection each endlessly and fleeting.
Campbell wrote seven of the ten songs and produced the set, which can be launched Friday. It’s rooted in his relationship with Williams and likewise the traditions of traditional nation, honored lustily on a canopy of George Jones ’ “That’s All It Took.”
Nostalgia and sentimentality are leavened with humor, swagger, keening harmonies and Campbell’s guitar. An understated class distinguishes his enjoying even when he makes like Eric Clapton or serves up Southern rock riffs, and the temper is such that laughter accompanies his solo on the funky “The Means You Make Me Really feel.”
The backing band consists of Little Feat pianist Invoice Payne and Levon Helm, who recorded the drum half for “That’s All It Took” shortly earlier than he died in 2012. Stately preparations body songs about flirting, constancy and the delicate nature of all of it.
Campbell’s life-threatening bout with COVID-19 in 2020 looms on the ballad “A Little Higher,” an ode to easy pleasure. A stomping duet on the Julie Miller-penned “I Love You” serves because the emotional centerpiece, if solely due to the title.
Different highlights embrace the inviting ballad “Experience with Me,” the New Orleans-style shuffle “I Assume About You,” and the honky-tonkin’ working-class anthem “We Achieved Earned It,” which rhymes “steak supreme” with “château du vin.”
Campbell and Williams swap lead vocals and sound terrific singing collectively, which must be no shock. In any case, concord is what marriage is about.
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