Article Contributed by Champagne House Media
Published on 2026-05-01
Photo: Courtesy of the Artist
The Offering is the brand new collaborative album by bassist and multi-instrumentalist Oteil Burbridge and vocalist Lamar Williams Jr., recorded in December 2024 at Flóki Studios on Iceland’s north coast and produced by drummer, bandleader, and Soulive co-founder Alan Evans. Across its eight songs, The Offering centers on melody, groove, and message rather than genre, drawing together Southern soul, gospel harmony, improvisational rock, and African-rooted rhythm carried through Burbridge’s banjo explorations into song-driven ensemble music. Listen to The Offering HERE.
The sessions feature drummer John Morgan Kimock, percussionist Weedie Braimah, organist Melvin Seals of the Jerry Garcia Band, pianist and violinist Jason Crosby, guitarists Tom Guarna and Jaden Lehman — musicians whose overlapping histories connect the Allman Brothers Band, Dead & Company, the Jerry Garcia Band, Soulive, and West African percussion traditions.
The music began more than a decade earlier during informal writing sessions between Burbridge and Williams in Burbridge’s basement studio in Georgia, where Burbridge was teaching himself banjo and developing rhythmic and harmonic exercises as a way of learning the instrument’s structure and lineage.
“I didn’t have any kind of aim in mind when we wrote these songs,” Burbridge says. “I was just learning to play the banjo, and those exercises ended up turning into songs.” He brought the melodies to Williams and asked whether he heard lyrics within them. “He did, so we just put two and two together,” Burbridge adds.
The material remained unfinished for years — written but not arranged — carried through touring schedules, family life, and other projects until the collaborators unexpectedly circled back. “It was mind-blowing that after all those years we came back and got to record this music,” Williams says.
Their connection reaches back to the late 1990s in the extended orbit of the Allman Brothers Band. Burbridge first gained national recognition with Aquarium Rescue Unit before joining the Allman Brothers in 1997, performing with the group for seventeen years and later co-founding Dead & Company.
Williams — the son of Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams — forged his own path as a vocalist, songwriter, and bandleader shaped by gospel phrasing, soul repertoire, and years of touring. What began as porch writing between friends slowly became the foundation of The Offering, though more than ten years passed before the music was finally recorded.
Producer Alan Evans provided the bridge from unfinished material to a completed album. His path into production emerged organically through years of recording, mixing, and problem-solving in the studio, often finding himself asked to guide projects once musicians recognized his broader creative perspective. “It all comes down to the song,” Evans says.
Having previously worked with Burbridge at Flóki Studios, he returned to Iceland determined to capture a live, ensemble-driven performance rather than assemble recordings piece by piece. The demos, Evans explains, revealed something distinct from any expected Dead-adjacent sound, pointing instead toward a more song-centered approach shaped by banjo textures, deep groove, and layered influences. This ensemble, Evans says, could perform “both live and in the studio at a high level.”
Flóki Studios sits on Iceland’s northern coastline near the Arctic Circle, designed as a residential space for extended sessions far removed from touring routes and city studios. Reaching the building in winter required navigating deep snowdrifts and, at times, walking the final distance on foot. “There was snow on the ground, but a live volcano erupting at the same time — fire and ice,” Burbridge recalls. “It’s a magic place. You can feel it.”
For Williams, the isolation reshaped attention itself. Removed from routine and surrounded by ocean, mountains, and silence, the environment felt “like another planet,” he says, with “nothing to do but focus on the work and be at peace with that.”
When the band finally played the long-gestating songs together from beginning to end, the years between writing and recording seemed to dissolve. Evans remembers goosebumps and silence in the control room — the shared awareness that the music had crossed into something deeper. While recording “Time for the Sun to Rise,” a blues song associated with Earl King and long performed by Williams, the room fell completely still as the performance unfolded. Listening back, Evans recalls thinking, “If I never do anything else again, I’m cool.”
“The Way We Rise” opens the album with a message of endurance. Burbridge describes it as a reflection on “how we get through hard times” and on “tenacity and perseverance,” adding that its closing groove feels “spiritually fortifying” and “like a strengthening thing.” “Hush,” Williams says, urges listeners to quiet surrounding noise and remember that “it’s more love in the world than it is hate.”
“Love & War” confronts division directly, exploring “all of the wars that we face throughout our lifetimes” and the possibility of overcoming them “with love versus being wrathful,” Williams explains. “Country Road,” drawn from James Taylor’s repertoire, offers what Williams calls “an endearing song” and “a softener” within the album’s broader rhythmic intensity.
“If You See Their Lips Moving” addresses deception and historical memory. “The web of lies will continue in life and throughout our history,” Williams says. “We just have to be honest enough and open enough to remember history to know where we’re going in the future.”
“First Born,” written before the birth of Burbridge’s son as a hope he would be born healthy, is charged with hope and, as Williams describes it, “universal compassion.”
“Water Under the Bridge,” the first song Burbridge composed on banjo, turns toward forgiveness within human relationships, reminding listeners to let conflict “keep flowing like water under the bridge,” Williams says.
Closing with “Time for the Sun to Rise,” the album closes the loop with aching stillness — a performance whose quiet gravity defined the sessions themselves.
For Williams, the finished recording carries meaning beyond style or lineage. He hopes listeners feel “excited and thrilled about hearing something so universally new to the sonic.” He describes the music as “loving, honest, open, passionate,” adding that “we can all feel it together.”
Completing The Offering closed a process measured in years rather than months — nearly twelve from genesis to full execution. Williams describes the release simply: “My soul is buzzing. We finally put it in the universe.”
Music from The Offering will be performed during a string of Oteil & Friends tour dates throughout May along with July festival appearances at GratefulFest in Garrettsville, OH and Roots Rock Revival in Big Indian, NY.
Tour Dates:
May 1 – New Orleans, LA – The Joy Theater
May 9 – Ardmore, PA – The Ardmore Music Hall
May 10 – Ardmore, PA – The Ardmore Music Hall
May 12 – Baltimore, MD – Nevermore Hall
May 13 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl
May 14 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl
May 15 – Port Chester, NY – The Capitol Theatre
May 16 – Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun
May 17 – Boston, MA – Royale
May 18 – Wilmington, NC – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater
May 19 – Wilmington, NC – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater
May 20 – Richmond, VA – Music at Maymont
May 21 – Cumberland, MD – DelFest
May 28 – Louisville, KY – Iroquois Amphitheater
May 29 – St. Louis, MO – Atomic Block Party
May 30 – Chicago, IL – Park West
May 31 – Milwaukee, WI – The Pabst Theater
July 25 – Garrettsville, OH – GratefulFest
July 27–31 – Big Indian, NY – Roots Rock Revival
August 1 – Richmond, VA – Jampacked
August 2 – Asheville, NC – French Broad River Brewery
August 4 – Nantucket, MA – The Muse
August 5 – Nantucket, MA – The Muse
August 6 – Deerfield, MA – Summer Stage at Treehouse
August 7 – Nashua, NH – Center for the Arts
August 8 – Jay, VT – Jay Peak
August 9 – Canandaigua, NY – Lincoln Hill Farms
