On April 27, John Williams and John Etheridge gave the concluding concert of their month-long tour of the States at Peabody Conservatory’s Friedberg Hall in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore Guitar Society hosted the evening and drew a nearly full house.

From their casual demeanor and humorous remarks onstage, it was readily apparent that the tour had been good fun for both guitarists. Williams played one of his Greg Smallman guitars equipped with the B-Band pickup/mic amplification system, and Etheridge had his Charles Fox Ergo Noir steel-string acoustic and a semi-hollow body electric guitar.

The concert opened with Francis Bebey’s “Sangara” with Williams providing a buoyant accompaniment to Etheridge’s fleet-fingered 16th note lines and triadic strumming. They continued with the African music theme with a gently rocking rendition of Paul Bert “Rossy” Rahasimanana’s “Mitopia”, something Williams culled from Rossy’s soundtrack to the documentary film “Ghost Island”, and which also appeared on Williams’s “The Magic Box” CD.

The concert’s generous first half ran an hour in length and included “Monty’s Casino”, a piece penned by Etheridge that was a recent addition to the program. The tune’s active chord progression kept Williams busy supplying the accompaniment for Etheridge’s single-string explorations. The half also included solo numbers by each guitarist. Going first, Etheridge gave a skillful rendition of the Charles Mingus standard “Goodbye Porkpie Hat”. After playing the head of the tune in chord-melody fashion, Etheridge created a loop of a two-chord vamp with his Line 6 digital effects unit and soloed over it. He added additional parts to the loop as the piece progressed before restating the melody and then fading out.

For his solos, Williams turned to music by Venezuelans Ignacio “Indio” Figueredo (“Los Caujaritos”) and Benito Canonico (“El Totumo de Gaurenas”). He played the two lively songs with a terrific groove and tasteful dynamics. Both men were in good spirits, injecting humor as they alternated announcing the pieces. Etheridge confessed his practice of attaching “dubious titles” to his songs. Ian McEwan’s book Comfort of Strangers was, he revealed, his source for the title of “Strange Comforts”. “Whenever I do this, I change the wording just enough to avoid a copyright problem,” he joked before they started the tune. Prior to playing “Extra Time”, Williams spoke of developing the tripartite work by adding his own sections to J.S. Bach’s “Prelude in c minor” from the Well Tempered Clavier book.

Opening the second half, Etheridge took the stage, standing alone to play “Stormy Weather” and a medley of jazz pieces. Recognizing Baltimore as Billie Holiday’s birthplace, he played her song “God Bless the Child”, then moved the tempo up considerably for “Now’s the Time” by bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker. He slowed back down for an improvised blues, and then finished with a jam over another looped ostinato.

After Etheridge bowed out amid thunderous applause, Williams took the stage again saying, as if to himself, “How do you follow that? It’s a classical guitarist’s nightmare! I’ll take refuge in something slow.” He then played Antonio Carillo’s sublime waltz “Como Llora una Estrella.” He followed that with two of his original and very tuneful pieces. The first is yet untitled, the second is called “Hello Francis”, dedicated to his friend, the late Francis Bebey, a Cameroonian multi-instrumentalist and composer. The work was reminiscent in texture and rhythm to Bebey’s “Sangara” which opened the concert.

The duo wound down the program with Etheridge’s decidedly un-jazzy waltz, “Places Between” and Ben Verdery’s 15-minute extravaganza, “Peace, Love, and Guitars.” The latter features an odd-time minimalist opening section, an unaccompanied solo segment for each player, and culminates with a country hoedown and some blistering-fast unison lines. A huge D major chord finishes it off.

The audience clapped long and hard as the duo bowed and left the stage. They returned to play Vasco Martins’s simple and lovely “Triangular Situations” and the traditional song, “Djandjon”, both from “The Magic Box” album. Announcing the latter, Williams quipped, “This is really just a riff, it has no beginning and no end. So if anyone has a late bus to catch . . .”

The evening’s program reinforced my impression of Williams as a classical guitarist who, more than many others, really enjoys playing music that grooves. This proclivity is evident in many of the solo classical pieces he has recorded that are based on dance forms. The music he and Etheridge chose to perform was a perfect meeting ground for their very different styles and sounds. Almost throughout, Williams happily tapped his foot while laying down a solid accompaniment under Etheridge’s wonderful improvisational excursions. It appeared to me that Williams also took the opportunity to improvise on some numbers. The only tiny flaw in the show was that on a few occasions in the heat of moment, the volume of Etheridge’s guitar crept up and buried Williams’s guitar. However, those times were few and brief. Overall, the concert revealed a side of Williams that American audiences rarely see: the classical virtuoso in a fairly casual setting thoroughly enjoying making music with a close and respected friend.