New Album: Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams, The Offering

Bassist Oteil Burbridge and vocalist Lamar Williams. Jr. have announced the release of The Offering, a full-length studio album coming out via Floki Studios on May 1st. Recorded at the rising destination studio in Iceland’s Northern Coast and produced by drummer, engineer, and Soulive co-founder Alan Evans, the collaborative project shares the first offering off of the new album, “The Way We Rise.”

The album features an all-star lineup of 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 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.”

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.

The music began more than a decade earlier during informal writing sessions between Burbridge and Williams in Burbidge’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.”