Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Keller Williams (born February 4, 1970) is an American musician from Fredericksburg, Virginia, who began performing in the early 1990s. He is also known by the names K-Dub or just Keller, when performing. Williams' music combines elements of bluegrass, folk, alternative rock, reggae, electronica/dance, jazz, funk, and other assorted genres. He is often described as a 'one-man jam-band' due to his frequent use of live phrase looping with multiple instruments.
Touring
Though primarily a solo artist, Williams has toured with several bands that include Yonder Mountain String Band, The String Cheese Incident, Umphrey's McGee and Ratdog, and has frequently performed at The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, the AllGood Music Festival, Summer Camp Music Festival, and the The Rothbury Festival. Williams has an audio taping policy of his performances, and for non-commercial trading of the recordings but use of video or flash photography, or any recordings for profit are prohibited.
Keller Williams Incident
Keller Williams Incident is a collaborative performance between Williams and The String Cheese Incident. They have performed together, and Williams' 1999 album Breathe was released collaboratively as the Keller Williams Incident. Williams and SCI began collaborating after Williams saw the band perform in Colorado; offering to play with the band in exchange for free ski passes.
Keller Williams with Moseley, Droll and Sipe
Williams also frequently performs with a backing band as "Keller Williams with Moseley Droll and Sipe". Formed in 2007 as the WMDs, they first played at the Bonnaroo music festival. The group consists of Williams on rhythm guitar, Jeff Sipe on drums, Keith Moseley on bass, and Gibb Droll on lead guitar. They changed their name from the WMDs in 2008.
Keller & The Keels
"Keller & The Keels" is a bluegrass project consisting of Williams and the husband and wife combo of Larry and Jenny Keel. The trio released Grass in 2006, a collection of both original and cover songs. They released Thief, an album of cover songs, in May 2010.
The Sexy Bitches
Keller played a side project with members of moe. and Umphrey's Mcgee at Summercamp 2009 called "The Sexy Bitches," not Keller McGee, as the group is sometimes named on the internet.
Instruments
A self-taught musician, he usually performs with a variety instruments connected to several synchronized Gibson Echoplex Delay units, which allow him to play a riff once on an instrument, record, layer, and repeat it. This lets him play unaccompanied on stage, helping him to recreate the sound of a full band. He also uses a wide variety of effects, including an envelope filter expression pedal, wah pedal, a Line 6 tap delay, a Roland guitar synth, and a Talk Box.
His main guitars used are a Martin HD-28 and D-35, an Alvarez/Joe Veillette MTB baritone, a Gibson Chet Atkins SST Acoustic Electric Guitar with synth pickup routed to a Roland synth processor, a Fender Precision bass, an Avante baritone acoustic guitar, a Rick Turner baritone 12-string, a Tacoma Thunderhawk, an early 50's tempo and a Gordon Anderson custom 8-string.
In addition, Williams incorporates a variety of acoustic and electric percussion instruments into his live sets, most notably a Roland Handsonic HDP-15 drum machine. He also frequently performs on piano, a theremin, a Korg Kaossilator, a Macbook, and a set of Boomwhackers percussion tubes.
Other projects
Williams currently hosts the radio show Keller's Cellar which has a live online stream and is pre-recorded at Wally Cleaver's in Fredericksburg, VA.
Williams recently started the "Once a Week Freak", on his website where every week he had released a new song from his new 2009 album "Odd". Upon release of every single song on the album, he released the entire album in a single download. And due to the large success of this idea, Williams has now chosen to keep the "Once a Week Freek" project going and releases a new song/video or two each and every week, usually on Wednesday. These tracks consist of live performances of previously recorded songs, unreleased covers of other bands' songs, or just different renditions of his own recorded music.
Williams played as a member of the Rhythm Devils with Grateful Dead drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart at the Gathering of the Vibes festival in 2010. Williams then appeared with the Rhythm Devils in 9 July shows on their summer tour.
Kdubalicious is a project involving Keller Williams on bass/guitar, Jay Starling on dobro/keyboards, and Mark D on drums. Kdubalicious is Reggae/ Dub/ Funk. Keller's project Kdubalicious formed in late 2010, and the group continues to play occasional shows. There was a unique winter concert held on a turf field in Fredericksburg, VA featuring Kdubalicous w/ Larry Keel, Jenny Keel, and John Starling in December 2010.
