Songwriter Feature - Tiffany Williams

Tiffany Williams is one of my very favorite Folk/Americana artists and I'm honored to call her a co-writer and a friend. I met Tiffany because my parents saw one of her shows in Louisville, KY, and were blown away. They called me the next day and told me I just had to look up this incredible Folk/Americana artist and see if she'd like to write a song with me! We've now written a few songs and played a few shows together here in Nashville. I am so excited to introduce you to Tiffany and her music! 

Tiffany William's new single "If It Wasn't" coming out August 28th is now available for Pre-Save! This is a duet with Jonathan Dean. When you pre-save an artist's new song on Spotify you help their chances of being put on an official curated Spotify Playlist! If you have a moment to pre-save Tiffany's new song, it would mean a lot to us!

I hope you'll join us tonight on Instagram LIVE at 8pm central time for some original music! In the meantime, I would like to pass the mic over to Tiffany Williams so you can get to know her!

When did you start singing/playing music?

When I was 25. Late bloomer! Prior to that I just sang (very) casually in church and then college choir.

How did you get into songwriting?

I’m a fiction writer. And I’ve always been musical (flute, baritone in high school/college). So the two sort of converged without my consent!

Who are your biggest influences?

Patty Griffin, Ray Lamontagne, Gillian Welch

What are you listening to right now?

Briston Maroney and Phoebe Bridgers 

If you could only listen to one artist for the rest of your life, who would it be?

Otis Redding

Can you tell us a little more about "If It Wasn't?"

https://americansongwriter.com/if-it-wasnt-tiffany-williams-jonathan-dean-song-premiere/

If you could write a song with any person dead or alive, who would it be?

Lori McKenna

What was/is your experience in quarantine like as a musician?

Sort of an existential crisis at first. I’ve not been super productive, but I have written a couple of songs. And I’ve recorded (in a safe way!) a couple of singles.

What advice would you give to an aspiring singer/songwriter?

Get out of your own way, honey. 

MORE ABOUT TIFFANY WILLIAMS

Tiffany Williams is a native of Eastern Kentucky. She is a coal miner's daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter and an exciting emerging voice who crafts achingly beautiful songs about what it means, in her experience, to be from the Appalachian Mountains.

"I love Appalachia as I love myself," she says, "with an intimate understanding of its shortcomings and virtues, with compassion and forgiveness, and with fierce hope. It’s home and always will be, but, for me, it took moving away to write about it."

When she "took off down the big road," she ended up in Nashville, where, for the last five years, she has honed her songwriting through commercial, co-writing, and solo pursuits.

Her debut EP, When You Go, released January 18, 2019, features five tracks, all of which were penned by the artist and are a meditation on life in the mountains—a place, as echoed in the title track, that "you can't leave […] when you go."

"Most of these songs were recorded at Appalshop, in Letcher County, where I'm from. I'm really happy it worked out that way," says the singer/songwriter.

The album was produced by Britton Patrick Morgan of Louisville and benefits from the fine musicianship of Ellie Miller, Taylor Shuck, and Dave Roe, who played bass on the road with Johnny Cash.

The melodic dissonance of her upbringing—the natural mountain beauty balanced by the difficulties of rural life—is a unifying theme of When You Go. Tiffany delivers heart-worn songs with a room-silencing, angelic alto that takes listeners on an authentic journey of longing, alienation, and undeniable beauty.

"These songs are about the fallout of love and loss, the need and hope for the balm of companionship against the mystery of existence, and loving and longing for a complicated life and place you know you have to leave," she says.

 In addition to her keen abilities as a songwriter, Tiffany is an award-winning fiction writer (publishing as T.M. Williams). She is the recipient of the 2011 Jean Ritchie Fellowship for Appalachian Writing and the 2017 Denny C. Plattner Award for fiction. Her stories have been featured in Still: The Journal, Waxing & Waning, and Appalachian Heritage. While she is still writing songs, she is also currently at work on her first novel.

"I'm a lexophile—a lover of words. That's always been central to everything I've done—from teaching high school English and studying Appalachian speech and sociolinguistics in graduate school to writing songs and stories. Songwriting has a special place because I feel that's where I can truly operate at the confluence of all the things that are dear to me—words, story, and music." 

Though she has made Nashville her home, Tiffany still holds on to the place that made her. "My family goes back several generations in Letcher County. My 5th-great grandfather is buried on the hill above the house I grew up in, and the creek that runs in front of that house bears his name. I don't get back there as much as I'd like, but I keep it with me, always."