 Biography
There are few
American classics these days, but Don Williams is certainly one
of them. With a warm hickory baritone that balances strength
with a gentle concern, he draws his listener into the intimate
world of an old friend, someone who cares deeply about you and
the quality of your life ... and who will always offer a hand
when you need it.
“I don't think there's anything we have to do daily in our
walk that's more important than how we deal with each other,”
Williams confesses. “To me, it's everything. So when you're
looking for songs, if they can express that, then you've found
something special.”
Without a doubt Williams, whose hits with the likes of Good
Ole Boys Like Me, I Believe In You, Love Is On A Roll, Amanda
and Tulsa Time, have always had a knack for finding songs
that speak directly to people's hearts.
“When you first start making records, all the songs are
challenging and there's so much to talk about,” Williams
begins, explaining the challenges of maintaining one's artistic
commitment a quarter of a century into a solo career. “But
after you've done it for a while, it's hard to revisit the same
places and still be believable.”
“The longer you do it, the harder it becomes to do things that
aren't just an echo of something you've already done. Of course,
when you do lock into it, the fact that you've lived all those
years and seen so much allows you to bring a lot of things to
the song you couldn't have when you were starting out.”
For Don Williams,
trying to address the simple pleasures and the things that
should last has always been his stock in-trade. And he's also
always been something of an iconoclast in a town known for its
assembly line approach to making music.
Williams recalls,
“Back when I was on JMI Records several industry people really
liked what I was doing but they also said it would never work
... it's too laid back.”
What those people
forgot is that country music is built on real emotions, real
songs, real moments in people's lives. Don Williams is a subtle
master of all of those things, deftly inhaling tenderness and
concern into some of the best lyrics and melodies ever created.
And his commitment to the songs never flags. “What it is, is
simple: I want the best songs possible. I don't look at songs as
just singles or who the publisher is - I look at what it's
trying to say, how it feels. Then when they're picked out, I
want to treat them all the same. I want to make them as special
as I can.”
“Ideally, whether I'm in the studio or on stage, I'm totally
into the story, or if there's no story, that emotion, that feel
of what I'm doing at that moment is the only thing I want to
experience.”
“After a day in the studio or a show, the energy I've used
just wears me out and if you're not 100% there, that's even
worse. There's nothing more trying than not being completely
there!”
For the man who got his professional start with the Pozo Seco
Singers, who hit with Time in the mid-60s, there's no greater
sin than not being completely committed to the songs he's
entrusted with. As he says with an earnestness that stops you in
your tracks, “There's just the emotion. There's the right
emotion - and then it's over.”
Simple. Direct. To the point. Exactly the things that have made
Don Williams' music so compelling - and that's helped him build
an international audience in places one can't imagine country
music ever being more than a curiosity. Yet for Don Williams,
he's popular in far-flung places like Zimbabwe, Australia,
England, Monaco, Finland and Brazil as he is in his native
America.
“I couldn't have picked anything for the South African culture
or the English culture,” Williams explains. “We're all made
of the same stuff - and when we're dealing with one another,
we're all on the same plane. I've been fortunate that when I've
picked material, there's always been a universality to what I
want to sing and what other people feel.”
“It's pretentious to think that you can speak for anyone else,
but I work very hard to align myself with the average person
who's never been in a studio or sat down with a number of
writers to hear their songs. Those are the people I make music
for, not Nashville so much, and I think it's served me well.”
Enlisting the help of his accomplished road band, Williams
creates the kind of music that speaks to everyone. There's a
broken-in familiarity among his players that can't be created
merely by charts and musicians - and those lived-in grooves fit
Williams like the custom-Stetson hat he's know for.
“Everybody knows from me on the road that when they're doing
their job well, I hear nothing,” Williams says, explaining the
subtle musical web his band spins. “It's the emotion of what
we're doing is all that I hear. Nothing sticks out. Nothing jars
me.”
“That lets me get to the inside of the song. When that is
working right, there's nothing but that (song's) feeling, and I
can focus completely on that. If you can create that, then
you've done a good job.” |
