Rachel Williams: Lonely At the Bottom
Rachel Williams likes her country
music with generous helpings of straight-ahead slow-burners, big rock hooks
and Motor City-bred rhythm and blues. And it just
so happens that the Michigan-born singer has the pipes
to straddle the genre-bending territory between southern-fried twang, heartbroken
balladry and chugging, bottom-heavy
grooves. With Lonely At the Bottom—her second full-length album—Williams
unites the styles she loves in a potent and mature artistic
statement. In a day when most albums average twelve tracks or less, Lonely boasts
a lavish sixteen
songs.
“I was writing so much that I just couldn't bear to part with any of
the songs—they were all significant to me for one reason or another,” Williams
explains. “I felt that the only way to get a true representation of who
I am right now and the music that I'm doing these days was to include them all.
It definitely ended up being better this way, because instead of the token ‘one
acoustic song, one power ballad, one party song, etc.,’ we got to put
together an album with no limitations.”
Songwriting is a relatively
new addition to the twenty-one-year-old artists’ already
formidable arsenal. Just a few years back she was relying
on others for material (her debut, First Day Of The Truth, featured
her first Nashville co-write, “Welcome
To Love”), but she wrote or co-wrote twelve of the sixteen songs on Lonely. “It
feels like I’ve been writing since I’ve been singing. I just never
thought of myself as a strong songwriter until I moved
down here and started working at it, constantly. I
never thought that I’d
be able to write as much as I have and to have the songs
stand up against the stuff that we were
being pitched by other songwriters,” she says. “I just couldn’t
find anything that was beating what I was writing at
the time. A lot of times, nobody knows what I want
to say better than me.”
In another significant first, Williams
took part in every aspect of the record-making process this time around, from
presiding over artwork design to co-producing
the album’s sixteen tracks with Kim Copeland. “The first album,
I basically went in there and did my thing, sang my leads, did some background
vocals and then I went back to Michigan,” she says. “With this album
I wanted to be completely involved in everything that
was happening.”
As the album title suggests,
the songs are earthy, accessible narratives about
life’s ups and downs. “This
new CD just kind of follows me through some of the
disappointments that I was experiencing in relationships and my
career,” says Williams. “I basically tore out my journal and put
it on a CD. It’s a very scary, vulnerable place to be. But I’d rather
put it all out on the line than hold back and be unsure.
That’s my release,
how I keep sane. I always tell people, ‘Don’t ever break my heart,
because you will hear it in a song at some point down
the road.’ Guaranteed.”
“There’s a lot of dark songs on here,” she adds. “I
know that a lot of people are going to say, ‘What does she know about
that?’, but they’d be surprised. I have felt these things and I
have watched people I love dearly go through them as well. There’s absolutely
nothing on this album that I can’t relate to one hundred percent.”
The title track—a driving pop-rock anthem with an infectious hook—is
a declaration of independence from a controlling lover. Against the meaty blues-rock
riffs of “Firestarter,” Williams struts, belts and dares a tease
to “finish what he started.” With “How Does It Feel”—a
Williams solo write—she turns the tables on a guy who’s cut and
run. Her honeyed drawl hovers above the searing guitars and swelling B-3 of
melancholic rocker “Rain On the Windshield,” while aching acoustic
ballad “Kill Me In the Morning” has Williams seeking a salve at
the bottom of a shot glass and in a stranger’s bed. “World Famous”—a
gorgeous acoustic ballad sweetened with plaintive, lyrical guitar and piano—tells
a story that she knows all too well—the small town star chases her dreams
to the big city, only to find herself lost in the crowd,
working for her big break.
Assembling the album piece by piece,
they enlisted a revolving crew of ace studio musicians, including several of
Nashville’s most in-demand drummers,
from Nick Buda (Taylor Swift, Mindy Smith) to Wayne
Killius (Big and Rich, Steve Forbert), Brian Pruitt (Mark Chesnutt, LeAnn Rimes)
and Owen Hale (Lynyrd Skynyrd,
George Strait, Patty Loveless).
Williams’ solid musical foundation was laid early on in life. A native
of Belleville, Mi., she grew up within shouting distance of the birthplace of
the Motown sound. From the tender age of two—when her grandfather took
her to her first Judds concert—Williams cultivated a devotion to Wynonna.
Watching countless Wynonna television appearances and
reading every interview she could get her hands on, the aspiring singer admired
the personal strength
and career longevity that she herself would later strive
for as an artist.
“At five years old I told everybody I was going to be the next Wynonna,” she
recalls amusedly. “My mom would always ask if she could sing with me,
and I would say, ‘No, I don’t need a Naomi.’”
Williams had two significant things
going for her from the start—a strikingly
full-bodied voice and the conviction that she was born
to be a performer. Her passion and raw talent only became clearer as she progressed
from herding family
members into the living room to witness her hairbrush/microphone
mini-concerts to sweeping talent shows and choir competitions.
The budding siren conquered the
club and fair circuits of Michigan and surrounding states in her teens, handling
the bulk of booking responsibilities herself,
but she finally gained national exposure as a top 15
finalist on the USA Network’s
Nashville Star 2. Working as a waitress at the time the show aired, she soon
became known to two million viewers as “that Cracker Barrel girl.”
“We would have tons of people call Cracker Barrel and come in to see
me, and I’d be covered in coffee from waitressing,” she laughs. “I
can’t even tell you how many menus I signed.”
Following Nashville Star, media
attention and a string of noteworthy opening slots (including Williams’ crowing achievement—a long-coveted show
date with Wynonna) she decided it was time to up the ante and leave the restaurant
job behind. With the subsequent recording of her full-length debut—2004’s
First Day of the Truth—the singer solidified her heady mélange
of country, R&B and rock.
After relocating to Nashville in
late 2004, Williams began burning up the road with her band every chance she
could get, touring with Jason Aldean, Sammy
Kershaw and other acts, as well as playing numerous
showcases around town. The setlist and the venues may change from night to
night, but one thing remains
constant—she’s dedicated to delivering a great stage show, the kind
that wins over even the audience members who don’t typically like country
music.
“Every time I perform on stage, as corny as it sounds, I really feel
like I put myself out there,” she offers. “I leave nothing to the
imagination. I’ll just tell you straight out. Sure it’s draining,
but when you choose a career in music I don’t feel like you have a choice.
You owe people one hundred percent, or nothing at all. If not, then you’re
in the wrong field.”
Williams’ focus on songwriting has begun to pay off in a big way as
she’s logged co-writes with a host of well-respected writers, from Dave
Berg, who scored number hits with Reba McEntire (“Somebody”) and
Rodney Atkins (“If You’re Going Through Hell”), to Stewart
Harris, who topped the charts with the Wynonna Judd smash “No One Else
On Earth” and Travis Tritt’s “Can I Trust You With My Heart,” and
Lisa Carver, who has had cuts with Sugarland, Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, and
Julie Roberts.. Many industry insiders are starting to take notice of Rachel’s
songwriting talents as material for other country music
stars as well, as several of her songs are currently being held for numerous
major country recording artists.
In 2007 alone, this petite brunette
can credit a pair of showcases, a handful of performances in the prestigious
late night songwriters’ rounds at Nashville’s
famed Bluebird Café—including her hosting debut—and a booth
at Fan Fair—an important long-running feature of the CMA Music Festival—for
having raised Williams’ profile in Music City. Her latest album promises
to turn even more heads her way.
Williams may be still be considered
a Nashville newcomer, but she’s
already set her sights on forging an enduring musical career. She’s too
ambitious to aim for becoming country music’s latest flavor-of-the-moment.
“I look at Bonnie Raitt, Reba McEntire and Wynonna, who’ve been
here for decades—they’re not just plaques on the wall in the Hall
of Fame. They’re still doing their thing and getting loads of respect.
It would be so easy to become what the labels are looking for at this moment
just to have a hit single on the radio, but those things have never been the
end-all goal for me. I’m not going to apologize for my music. The way
that we’re doing things might take a hell-of-a-lot longer, but in the
end it ’s going to last.”
(Click here for
EPK page and printable .pdf.)
For more information:
Susan Tucker
Copeland Tucker Management
1010 16th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37212
615-429-5032
ctmgmt@aol.com
Website:
rachelwilliamsonline.com
Myspace: myspace.com/rachelwilliamsmusic
Record label:
HER Records
Nashville, TN
Booking:
Bobby Roberts Company
bobby@bobbyroberts.com
