Willie Wright: “Lack Of Education”

I truly don’t know where to begin in approaching this magnificent yet inscrutable work of art.  It is unconventional in every sense, from the curious title to the private press label it was released on; from the spare instrumentation to the fact that most of the tracks are covers that are nearly unidentifiable from their original incarnations. 

 

That last aspect is particularly significant, and definitive in creating a singular space for Wright’s music to live and breathe and thrive.  We’ve all heard loads of versions of Harrison’s “Here Comes The Sun”, likewise “Something” and James Taylor’s “Fire And Rain”, but we’ve never heard them like this, and we never will again.  There’s also the dynamically funky-but-still-minimalist reading of Sly’s “Thank You”, yet another song which is difficult to bring anything new to due to countless renditions, and yet another groove that Willie somehow manages to make completely his own.  This is to say nothing of his originals, which have a crystalline, fragile beauty to them that both confounds and envelops the senses, tied together by the impossibly exquisite warmth of a voice and writing style that, while certainly drawn in part from other sources, occupies its own sphere entirely.

 

Tags like “folk-soul” are easy to throw around now, and like any genre name are essentially meaningless in the face of experiencing music holistically, but that’s probably as close as one can get to categorizing this, inadequate as such attempts may be.  This is one of the most brilliant LP’s I’ve ever heard; no small praise from someone who’s spent a lifetime listening to melodic shamans and rhythmic conjurers.  An audio journey with roots in the earth and branches way, way out in the stratosphere.