Press Kit
Singer-songwriter
Robert Williams comes from a place no other American singer-songwriter can lay
claim to. Born and raised in Oklahoma, his crossroads meet at a dark little gin
joint where Kurt Weil vamps and Hank Williams sings lonesome, heartbroken
melodies.
Already earning a living from his music at the age of 19, Williams ran away to Berlin in 1969 and quickly found himself caught up in a thriving music scene rife with a nightly smorgasbord of stellar musicians, singing transvestites, multi-lingual songwriters and countless other denizens of the hippest scene going.
Back in the States in the mid-70s, Robert’s musical journey took him through the folk clubs and roadhouses of Oklahoma, Kansas City, Houston and Austin where he continued to forge his sound, blending folk, blues and rock with the melodic European cabaret style that had caught his imagination in Berlin. A stint in L.A. found Williams working with Little Feat’s Richie Hayward and George Marinelli (guitarist for Bruce Hornsby and Bonnie Raitt).
In addition to his work with Hayward and Marinelli, Williams’ career has been aided and abetted Stateside by performances with Kevin Welch, Texas legends Ray Wylie Hubbard and the Cowboy Twinkies, and Jerry Jeff Walker. He’s opened shows for Leo Kottke, Joan Armatrading, Kinky Freedman and the Texas Jewboys, and Willis Alan Ramsey, among many others.
A soulful guitar and mandolin player, Williams’ melodies make full use of his knowledge of unusual chordings and tunings. Unburdened by artistic borders, he isn’t afraid to travel through the many worlds of human emotion in his songs. Meet the young couple, Ruby and Bill, who married too young and live in a trailer park outside Oklahoma City. Hunker down in a dark corner and observe Jumbo’s Clown Room, a fantastical nightspot frequented by the inhabitants of the dark backstreets of post-war Berlin.
In central Europe, Robert often tours with Berlin’s now infamous Hagelberger Collective, a “musical commune” he joined there in the 70s with other like-minded musicians from Czech Republic, Switzerland, the U.K., Germany, Australia, Canada and the U.S.Robert records for Ordnung & Hartmann Records, an independent label based in Berlin, Germany, and is at work on two recording projects. He performs solo acoustic, and in the duo Grajeda & Williams with longtime musical partner Wayne Grajeda. He often co-writes with labelmate and fellow Hagelberger brother John Vaughan.
Robert's first solo cd, State Secrets, will be released in on OHR Records in November, 2004. The cd was produced in Nashville by George Marinelli. With the new record in hand, Robert will be touring in the US and Germany this fall and winter.
When not writing and playing music Robert teaches linguistics in Cairo, Egypt.
photo by Susanne Blank