Keller Williams is an heir to guitarists (and sometime singers) like Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke, with his percussive and harmonics-heavy guitar style, but he’s also obviously a student of the American songbook, known for his covers of everything from the Grateful Dead to old-school rap classics.
His Pettygrass project braids two strands of American music together: bluegrass and the songs of Tom Petty, who died unexpectedly last year. Adding banjo, mandolin, upright bass, slide guitar and piles of tight vocal harmonies to these familiar tunes, Williams and the Hillbenders demonstrate just how sturdy Petty’s songs are, in case you didn’t already have that sense. Plus, Keller gets to inject his manic prankster attitude and jammy approach into the affair.
If Elvis Presley made one of his first recordings by taking a Bill Monroe tune and giving it a rock-and-roll twist, 65 years or so later, 21st-century bluegrass is paying classic rock the same compliment, taking familiar staples and energizing them with string-band logic.
Keller Williams’ Pettygrass is at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven, on Dec. 14, at 9 p.m. Tickets are $30. toadsplace.com, 203-624-8623.