MJ Williams
Hayward Williams
Milwaukee Americana traveler Hayward Williams says it was “an accident” that his new album, Every Color Blue, was released on the very same day last month as John Hardin’s Bright Arcana in the Lowland Plains, but there’s much more karma in it than that. The two have collaborated casually as well as formally: performing, writing and recording together as Coyote Brother.
Williams’ voice sounds like it was soaked in coffee and bourbon, which also happens to be the name of the first track on Every Color Blue, his most stylized and rich release yet. Williams is a gifted singer-songwriter, a strong solo performer as at home with a mic and a guitar as any other setting. The new album showcases his music in the hands of what sounds like a Northern version of a Stax session band.
Of course, it takes good songs to benefit from the handling of good musicians. With thumping bass lines and keys throughout the 12 tracks, Williams seems to have gone to church in the making of the record. “Put Down the Fight” is gospel goodness created for troubled American times. “Lower your hands,” he sings.
Williams says he didn’t necessarily write the songs with the pandemic in mind, but he says the project “saved my sanity” during the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
“When faced with an unfamiliar and dark new world, having something positive and productive to do with your mind will give you the strength to endure,” Williams says. “I can’t play out, it’s true. But my family has gone through so much in the past year that leaving them alone in this time is unthinkable anyway.”
Speaking of family, Williams’ 4-year-old daughter MJ snapped the kicked-back album cover photo for her father. “I set up the camera and told her to go for it,” says Williams.
According to Williams, the studio band felt a family bond as well, which helped all the musicians calm coronavirus anxieties. The togetherness was virtual, with band members contributing remotely from Milwaukee, Chicago, Worcester, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island.
Williams says “Fades Away” is an example of a song that was finished and recorded pre-pandemic. Yet after the project was finished, he was surprised to discover that the song might speak to the weariness of the crisis more than any other.
“Fades Away” has the lonesome, physical stagger of the best of Tom Waits. It sounds like the heartbroken soundtrack for a drunken stumble home from the bar after two-too-many. Turns out, that’s exactly what it is.
“‘Fades Away’ is simply about walking home drunk from a bar and strolling through your neighborhood thinking about old flames and missed opportunities,” says Williams. “Now though, it feels more like a lament for the freedoms and loved ones that are vanishing before our eyes. I’m singing that song like my life depended on it and at the time I was genuinely afraid that I might not get another shot at it.”
There’s a lot on the line with this album. Filled with grace, brimming with hope, Williams blew out the stops.
