Listening to this nine-track monster, you are left in no doubt about the lived experience pouring through every second of this tremendous release. The grandson of a protégé of Johnny Cash, Willie has the old blues, soul and rock traditions coursing through his veins, and he looks set for superstardom. If he does not get there, something has gone badly wrong.
“Hypnotist” kicks things off and hints at his AC/DC and maybe even Axl Rose inspirations, but what strikes you straight away is that staggeringly mature baritone for someone still in his mid-twenties. There is rawness too, especially in lines like “but you ain’t got money”, and no hiding his reverence for early rock and roll, right down to the Jerry Lee Lewis-inspired touches that provide a false ending to the track. There is a no-holds-barred, forthright quality to the material, summed up in the line, “Don’t throw stones, you own a glasshouse”.
You get a full sense of his background too: raised on an island with a population of fewer than 450, with First Nations family roots stretching across Vancouver Island and Alaska. The album takes its name from his grandfather’s pool hall-cum-café, once the centrepiece of Albert Bay, British Columbia, and after it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt, it gave the youngster a place to hone his guitar licks, mostly covering Bon Scott-era AC/DC, inspired by endless reruns of a beloved VHS of their “Monsters of Rock” performance at Donington.
Self-taught, playing in front of passers-by and peers, he has turned all of that into something full of toughness, optimism and force, even if darker moments still surface, like on “High Beam Blues”, where he references the very real racism he faced with the line, “some fucker, problem ain’t mine”.
This is his second album, recorded in Nashville with Tom Hambridge, whom he met one summer at a Buddy Guy gig in Toronto, and it captures the feel of those long drives from one small town to another, with a rye and a few handshakes usually waiting at the end of them. When he sings, “I was born on Campbell River, little lonesome logging town”, these songs ache, roar and then ache some more.
Willie heads to the UK this September alongside Ally Venable in support of her acclaimed album “Money and Power”, and if “if you don’t play, you won’t have fun” is the motto, then catching him live at Rescue Rooms in Nottingham, among other venues, feels like an absolute must. Full-throttle stuff. Not to be missed.
