When Yasmin Williams plays her Timberline harp guitar, she uses her fretting hand to strike the low-resonating strings on the upper neck. They're tuned to open G.
Acoustic guitar fingerstylist Yasmin Williams had a wide breadth of musical influences growing up in Washington D.C. Everything from go-go funk to Jimi Hendrix to Nirvana to hip-hop inspired her to pick up an electric guitar, and that amalgamation of styles remains the bedrock of the music she makes. But it's how she translates it all through her acoustic guitar, kora, kalimba, and a pair of tap shoes that makes the 24-year-old's latest release, Urban Driftwood, so captivating.
It also raises a question: How does one go from bashing out Nirvana songs to becoming one of the fastest-rising stars in fingerstyle guitar?
"I wanted to branch off and write my own music," Williams says. "But I felt like the electric guitar was a bit limiting, especially with the percussive stuff I wanted to do. And once I figured out how to do fingerstyle, it was a lot easier for me to write my own tunes. I think the first song I learned was 'Blackbird,'by the Beatles. That pushed fingerstyle into my brain. I fell in love with it.
"But I've always written instrumental music, simply because that's what I'm comfortable with. Even when I listen to music in general, I don't necessarily care about the lyrics most of the time. It's always the instrumentation and arrangements that get me to listen to a track."
Sunshowers
Since the day in May 2018 that Unwind, her debut album, dropped, Williams's acoustic instrumental wizardry and tapestry of influences has been on full display, with her impeccable technique and unique take on fretboard tapping demanding attention.
Inhibited by the bulk of some acoustic-guitar bodies, Williams decided to approach tapping by laying her 6-string horizontally on her lap. This is much more comfortable for her, and offers better access to the whole fretboard, laying it out more like a piano than a guitar. It's just one way Williams expands her musical dialect with a non-traditional approach. It wasn't long after the release of Unwind that Williams started to gain a reputation as an innovator. And, as innovators often do, she already had her eye on something new.
"For Unwind, there wasn't much of a theme," she says. "It was more like a collection of songs I'd written from late high school to the end of college. Whereas Urban Driftwood is definitely about something. It has a theme and an arc to it." In the album's liner notes, Williams explains that all of the songs were written during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the lockdown and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd's killing is reflected in the unfolding of its sequence. She also sought to craft a sonic landscape that communicates a feeling of movement and the natural beauty that persists in urban spaces.
"It is a solo guitar, so the tone has to be on point. I can't have a muddy bass or a buzzing treble."
"It's my first project that shows where I'm from and pays homage to my roots," she continues. "And it was an extremely different process than how I recorded my first album. Since I had already released a 'guitar' album, I didn't want to release another one. I wanted to show my composition skills and show I've grown as a songwriter, composer, guitarist, and musician. That was a huge goal."
She aced it. Urban Driftwood is audibly a step forward—not only in the excellence and emotional depth of its playing, but for her inclusion of new sounds and musical colors. Partly, Williams accomplished this by including guest musicians. Amadou Kouyate, for example, adds djembe to the title track and"Adrift." The latter also features cellist Taryn Wood, and she and Williams create an adventurous topography of melodies that repeatedly interlock and veer apart.
"'Adrift' was me sharpening my composition tools and writing something with counterpoint in mind. It's almost like a fugue. I wrote that song to see if I could write a duet for guitar and another instrument. I thought it came out great and was a good fit with the theme of the album, so I included it."
To give her complete access to the fretboard while tapping, Williams has created her own lap-style approach to playing acoustic. Here, she's weaving a melody on her custom Skytop.
Photo by Umbar Kassa
Like "Adrift," much of Williams' music is carefully calculated. Her debut album was planned to precision before she entered the studio. But Urban Driftwood producer/engineer Jeff Gruber wanted Williams to take a different approach—to open her mind to new influences and new recording techniques. "Jeff got me to open up, in terms of not having to have everything finished before I get into the studio," Williams says. "Being able to experiment while recording was not something I was open to at all. I'm definitely a perfectionist. I want everything already figured out and finished. He showed me that it's okay if it's not. Great things will come out of experimentation, trial and error, and trying different techniques.
"Like, usually I use a looper pedal. And that's what I wanted to do on 'After the Storm.' I thought overdubbing and slicing things was cheating. I don't know why I thought that. It made things way harder than they needed to be. But that's how I wanted to do things. But there are four guitar parts in 'After the Storm.' Thankfully Jeff convinced me that it would sound better if I recorded each guitar part separately."
Put on Urban Driftwood with a good set of headphones and you'll understand what Gruber was after. The broad aural spectrum gives the impression you're sitting in the middle of an acoustic guitar orchestra. But now Williams has to reproduce that onstage. "Unfortunately, I didn't think about that before going into the studio," she says, laughing. "It's extremely hard, especially since my songs are already so technical. But I don't want the live performance to affect the studio recording. Thankfully, I can play most of the songs on the album myself now. Like 'Swift Breeze'—I figured out a way to play it live with the looper pedal. But I definitely will have to use backing tracks on some songs, because the parts are instruments that I don't play."
Yasmin Williams Gear
With its considerable overdubs, the material on Urban Driftwood is challenging to perform live. But with backing tracks and a deep reservoir of technique, Yasmin Williams rises to the task.
Photo by Jan Anderson
Guitars
- Custom Skytop acoustic with James May Ultra Tonic pickups
- Timberline acoustic parlor harp model with K&K pickups
- Sublime Guitar Company acoustic
Strings, Picks, and Accessories
- Shubb capos
- Calton guitar cases
- D'Addario Humidipaks
- GHS Silk and Steel string sets (.011–.048)
- Black Mountain thumbpicks
Effects
- Audio Sprockets ToneDexter
- Strymon BigSky
- Pigtronix Infinity Looper
- Joyo volume pedal
- Hologram Electronics Microcosm
- TC Electronic PolyTune
- Looptimus foot controller (for triggering backing tracks)
- Tap shoes
It's easy to get caught up in the songs and sounds of Urban Driftwood and miss the technical aspect of William's playing. It all seems so natural and seamless. But, watching her perform, you'll see her effortlessly whip through fast tapping passages, explore expansive chords, and reposition her guitar from conventional positioning to her lap for tapping, mid-song, without missing a beat.
"I have to practice that a little bit," Williams admits. "Especially for 'Juvenescence.' That switch is rather difficult because I only give myself a beat to do it. There's a lot of thought put into it. It's like, 'Okay, I'll play a harmonic here, give myself a rest, or something.' Usually, I don't give myself long because it will mess up the continuous motion of the song."
Williams' playing technique is just the tip of the iceberg. She's also known for incorporating additional instruments into her songs, and, in fact, her simultaneous guitar/kalimba performances are one of her trademarks. "I had always liked Maurice White's playing, especially on Earth, Wind & Fire's live versions of the song 'Kalimba Story,'" Williams explains. "Then one day I was writing a song and I wanted to add another timbre that guitar couldn't achieve. I was trying to think of instruments, and that kalimba sound kept popping into my head. I didn't realize it was the kalimba until I found one with no price tag in Guitar Center. I was like, 'That's the sound that I've been hearing! That's the Earth, Wind & Fire sound!' I've been using those ever since.
"Oh, and I use tap shoes, too," she adds, laughing. "Jeff had the two mics in stereo. One was on one shoe, and another mic was on the other, which I've never done before. He also added a plate reverb to it, which gave it the weird ping-pong delay in 'Through the Woods.' It blew my mind!"
Rig Rundown - Yasmin Williams
Thanks to Gruber's passion for capturing sonic detail, every instrument on Urban Driftwood has a beautiful dimensionality. "Jeff was huge on making everything sound spacious and lush," Williams says. "When I listened to it for the first time, I was shocked at how spacious and vibrant the guitar sounded. He didn't use a DI or anything. He used two or three mics on the guitar, close-miked, and that's it. He used pencil condenser mics."
Although this straightforward miking technique puts Williams' performances under a microscope, good luck finding a string buzz or flubbed note on the entire album. Not many players can perform with that level of precision. "I get irritated at myself if I hear any type of note inaccuracies or buzzing," she explains. "The only thing I can accept is [sliding] string sounds, because I like it and there's not much I can do about it. Other than that, I want it to sound as clear as possible. It is a solo guitar, so the tone has to be on point. I can't have a muddy bass or a buzzing treble. It has to be good. That's the standard I set for myself. I practice that a lot. Accuracy is extremely important."
Williams' touch and technique are vital to her tone but playing her beautiful custom Skytop acoustic guitar probably doesn't hurt, either. "The Skytop [tuned to open D] is its own story altogether," she says. "I really loved [Skytop luthier Eric Weigeshoff's] designs, how the guitars look, and the fact that they have the two huge side soundports instead of the one soundhole in the front. It sounds better to me, and it actually projects a lot better, which you may not expect. But because of my lap-tapping technique, his normal side ports can get muffled because they're facing my stomach. So since I do a lot of that tapping, he recommended this wood that had holes in the front called teredo-holed Sitka spruce. The holes are natural and made by mollusks, and I didn't care how it sounded! I just thought it looked cool. [Laughs.] It's like functional art. But those holes do help the sound project when I'm lap-tapping. It does a great job."
The Skytop is on every track on Urban Driftwood except "Adrift."
"I use my old Sublime guitar on that because it sounded better with the cello," Williams notes. Her other trademark instrument is her Timberline harp guitar. In addition to its standard 6-string layout, this parlor-size instrument features six lower-octave strings, tuned in open G. Staying true to her pragmatic approach to technique, Williams prefers plucking the lower strings by reaching over the top of the guitar and picking with her fretting hand. It took some work to master, but the harp guitar is now an indispensable tool in her sonic arsenal.
TIDBIT: Producer Jeff Gruber was Williams' studio guru for her latest album, Urban Driftwood, urging her to experiment with overdubs and capturing every sound in pristine detail.
"I'd wanted a harp guitar for a while, but it always seemed intimidating because of the extra set of sub-bass strings. It's actually not, once you get the hang of playing it. It just has a whole other dimension. I use it on 'Swift Breeze' to play the super-fast tapping part. And I also use the harp guitar on 'Jarabi.'"
Regardless of which guitar Williams plays, she has a beautiful, natural-sounding tone, even when plugged in. But she's not afraid to use pedals to get it. "Gear is very important to your tones, to everything, to how you play," she says. "If you find something that works for you, then use that. I'm getting into pedals more and experimenting with delays and reverbs and all that. I love to use them live and have a pedalboard. I have a Strymon BigSky, a Pigtronix Infinity Looper, and a cool Joyo volume pedal that's miniature, so it fits my foot well. And I got a new pedal by Hologram Electronics called a Microcosm, which is super cool. It's like a granular delay/micro-looper. It has stereo reverbs, too. I also have a ToneDexter, which is important for my guitar tone live." That device uses Audio Sprockets' WaveMaps technology to create an optimized version of an acoustic guitar's voice.
For someone who gave up electric guitar for its tonal limitations, Williams is definitely becoming a pedal junkie. Is this part of another sonic evolution? "Oh, yes, for sure," she admits. "I'm playing electric way more than I have in a long time. My main instrument is still acoustic, but I think electric will pop up at a show or two in the future.
"Nowadays, I'm more aware that I'm in a unique spot in the guitar scene, and I'm not afraid of that anymore," Williams continues. "I'm actually enjoying writing music that includes percussive stuff that pays homage to D.C. or go-go music or West African music or whatever. I like putting something different into the guitar canon, if you want to call it that. That's the point of Urban Driftwood."
Yasmin Williams, “Juvenescence” | New York Guitar Festival sessions
Yasmin Williams performs "Juvenescence" at Dumbarton Oaks Park in Washington, D.C. Enjoy her beautiful, ringing tone and expressive technique, and watch, at 1:34, as she seamlessly transitions to her trademark lap-tapping without missing a beat.
- Rig Rundown: Zane Carney - Premier Guitar ›
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- Yasmin Williams' Rig Rundown - Premier Guitar ›
Onstage, Tommy Emmanuel executes a move that is not from the playbook of his hero, Chet Atkins.
“My biggest decision every day on tour is, ‘What do I want to start with? How do I want to come out of the gate?’” Emmanuel explains to me over a video call. “A good opener has to have everything. It has to be full of surprise, it has to have lots of good ideas, lots of light and shade, and then, hit it again,” he says, illustrating each phrase with his hands and ending with a punch.“You lift off straightaway with the first song, you get airborne, you start reaching, and then it’s time to level out and take people on a journey.”
In May 2023, Emmanuel played two shows at the Sydney Opera House, the best performances from which have been combined on his new release, Live at the Sydney Opera House. The venue’s Concert Hall, which has a capacity of 2,679, is a familiar room for Emmanuel, but I think at this point in his career he wouldn’t bring a setlist if he was playing Wembley Stadium. On the recording, Emmanuel’s mind-blowingly dexterous chops, distinctive attack and flair, and knack for culturally resonant compositions are on full display. His opening song for the shows? An original, “Countrywide,” with a segue into Chet Atkins’ “El Vaquero.”
“When I was going to high school in the ’60s, I heard ‘El Vaquero’ on Chet Atkins’ record, [1964’s My Favorite Guitars],” Emmanuel shares. “And when I wrote ‘Countrywide’ in around ’76 or ’77, I suddenly realized, ‘Ah! It’s a bit like “El Vaquero!”’ So I then worked out ‘El Vaquero’ as a solo piece, because it wasn’t recorded like that [by Atkins originally].
“The co-writer of ‘El Vaquero’ is Wayne Moss, who’s a famous Nashville session guy who played ‘da da da’ [sings the guitar riff from Roy Orbison’s ‘Pretty Woman’]. And he played on a lot of Chet’s records as a rhythm guy. So once when I played ‘El Vaquero’ live, Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’” Emmanuel says, laughing.
Atkins is the reason Emmanuel got into performing. His mother had been teaching him rhythm guitar for a couple years when he heard Atkins on the radio and, at 6, was able to immediately mimic his fingerpicking technique. His father recognized Emmanuel’s prodigious talent and got him on the road that year, which kicked off his professional career. He says, “By the time I was 6, I was already sleep-deprived, working too hard, and being forced to be educated. Because all I was interested in was playing music.”
Emmanuel talks about Atkins as if the way he viewed him as a boy hasn’t changed. The title Atkins bestowed upon him, C.G.P. (Certified Guitar Player), appears on Emmanuel’s album covers, in his record label (C.G.P. Sounds), and is inlaid at the 12th fret on his Maton Custom Shop TE Personal signature acoustic. (Atkins named only five guitarists C.G.P.s. The others are John Knowles, Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Atkins himself.) For Emmanuel, even today most roads lead to Atkins.
When I ask Emmanuel about his approach to arranging for solo acoustic guitar, he says, “It was really hit home for me by my hero, Chet Atkins, when I read an interview with him a long time ago and he said, ‘Make your arrangement interesting.’ And I thought, ‘Wow!’ Because I was so keen to be true to the composer and play the song as everyone knows it. But then again, I’m recreating it like everyone else has, and I might as well get in line with the rest of them and jump off the cliff into nowhere. So it struck me: ‘How can I make my arrangements interesting?’ Well, make them full of surprises.”
When Emmanuel was invited to contribute to 2015’s Burt Bacharach: This Guitar’s in Love with You, featuring acoustic-guitar tributes to Bacharach’s classic compositions by various artists, Emmanuel expresses that nobody wanted to take “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” due to its “syrupy” nature. But for Emmanuel, this presented an entertaining challenge.
He explains, “I thought, ‘Okay, how can I reboot “Close to You?’ So even the most jaded listener will say, ‘Holy fuck—I didn’t expect that! Wow, I really like that; that is a good melody!’ So I found a good key to play the song in, which allowed me to get some open notes that sustain while I move the chords. Then what I did is, in every phrase, I made the chord unresolve, then resolve.
Tommy Emmanuel's Gear
“I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head,” Emmanuel says. “So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever.”
Photo by Simone Cecchetti
Guitars
- Three Maton Custom Shop TE Personals, each with an AP5 PRO pickup system
Amps
- Udo Roesner Da Capo 75
Effects
- AER Pocket Tools preamp
Strings & Picks
- Martin TE Signature Phosphor Bronze (.012–.054)
- Martin SP strings
- Ernie Ball Paradigm strings
- D’Andrea Pro Plec 1.5 mm
- Dunlop medium thumbpicks
“And then to really put the nail in the coffin, at the end, ‘Close to you’ [sings melody]. I finished on a major 9 chord which had that note in it, but it wasn’t the key the song was in, which is a typical Stevie Wonder trick. All the tricks I know, the wonderful ideas that I’ve stolen, are from Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, James Taylor, Carole King, Neil Diamond. All of the people who wrote really incredibly great pop songs and R&B music—I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a -half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
I share with Emmanuel that the performances on Live at the Sydney Opera House, which include his popular “Beatles Medley,” reminded me of another possible arrangement trick. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks, I preface, Marx writes of a lesson he learned as a performer—to “answer the audience’s questions.” (Emmanuel says he’s a big fan of the book and read it in the early ’70s.) That happened for me while listening to the medley, when, after sampling melodies from “She’s a Woman” and “Please Please Me,” Emmanuel suddenly lands on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
I say, “I’m waiting for something that hits more recognizably to me, and when ‘While My Guitar’ comes in, that’s like answering my question.”
“It’s also Paul and John, Paul and John, George,” Emmanuel replies. “You think, ‘That’s great, that’s great pop music,’ then, ‘Wow! Look at the depth of this.’”
Often Emmanuel’s flights on his acoustic guitar are seemingly superhuman—as well as supremely entertaining.
Photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva
A trick I like to employ as a writer, I say to Emmanuel, is that when I’m describing something, I’ll provide the reader with just enough context so that they can complete the thought on their own.
“You can do that musically as well,” says Emmanuel. He explains how, in his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” he’ll play only the vocal melody. “When people are asking me at a workshop, ‘How come you don’t put chords behind that part?’ I say, ‘I’m drawing the melody and you’re putting in all the background in your head. I don’t need to tell you what the chords are. You already know what the chords are.’”
“Wayne Moss came up to me and said, ‘You know, you did my part and Chet’s at the same time. That’s not fair!’”
Another track featured on Live at the Sydney Opera House is a cover of Paul Simon’s “American Tune” (which Emmanuel then jumps into an adaptation of the Australian bush ballad, “Waltzing Matilda”). It’s been a while since I really spent time with There GoesRhymin’ Simon (on which “American Tune” was first released), and yet it sounded so familiar to me. A little digging revealed that its melody is based on the 17th-century Christian hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which was arranged and repurposed by Bach in a few of the composer’s works. The cross-chronological and genre-lackadaisical intersections that come up in popular music sometimes is fascinating.
“I think the principle right there,” Emmanuel muses, “is people like Bach and Beethoven and Mozart found the right language to touch the heart of a human being through their ears and through their senses ... that really did something to them deep in their soul. They found a way with the right chords and the right notes, somehow. It could be as primitive as that.
Tommy Emmanuel has been on the road as a performing guitarist for 64 years. Eat your heart out, Bob Dylan.
Photo by Jan Anderson
“It’s like when you’re a young composer and someone tells you, ‘Have a listen to Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,”’ he continues. “‘Listen to how those notes work with those chords.’ And every time you hear it, you go, ‘Why does it touch me like that? Why do I feel this way when I hear those chords—those notes against those chords?’ I say, it’s just human nature. Then you wanna go, ‘How can I do that!’” he concludes with a grin.
“You draw from such a variety of genres in your arrangements,” I posit. “Do you try to lean into the side of converting those songs to solo acoustic guitar, or the side of bridging the genre’s culture to that of your audience?”
“I stole every idea I could, and I tried to make my little two-and-a-half minutes as interesting and entertaining as possible. Because entertainment equals: Surprise me.”
“If I was a method actor,” Emmanuel explains, “what I’m doing is—I’m writing music for the film that’s in my head. So, I don’t think, ‘I’m just the guitar,’ ever. I always think it has to have that kind of orchestral, not grandeur, but … palette to it. Because of the influence of Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Elton John, especially—the piano guys—I try to use piano ideas, like putting the third in the low bass a lot, because guitar players don’t necessarily do that. And I try to always do something that makes what I do different.
“I want to be different and recognizable,” he continues. “I remember when people talked about how some players—you just hear one note and you go, ‘Oh, that’s Chet Atkins.’ And it hit me like a train, the reason why a guy like Hank Marvin, the lead guitar player from the Shadows.... I can tell you: He had a tone that I hear in other players now. Everyone copied him—they just don’t know it—including Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, all those people. I got him up to play with me a few times when he moved to Australia, and even playing acoustic, he still had that sound. I don’t know how he did it, but it was him. He invented himself.”
YouTube It
Emmanuel performs his arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” illustrating how omitting a harmonic backdrop can have a more powerful effect, especially when playing such a well-known melody.
Initially released in 1977, the Gibson RD model has been a cult classic for years. It is famous for its unique appearance, which takes inspiration from both the Gibson Explorer and Firebird designs, as well as its functionality and use by several popular guitarists across multiple genres.
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The Gibson RD Custom is designed to help players stand out from the crowd with its longer scale length, curvaceously elegant body, and classic design. Now is your opportunity to experience the unique and comfortable playing experience of the cult-favorite Gibson RD Custom for yourself. A Custom Shop hardshell case is also included.
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