(1) A country singer an… Read Full Bio ↴There are at least two artists by this name:
(1) A country singer and songwriter from Texas.
(2) An alias of techno producer Thomas Wendel.
(1) Don Williams (Born May 27, 1939, in Floydada, Texas - Died September 8, 2017) spent much of his childhood in Corpus Christi, Texas. His father was a mechanic whose job took him to other regions, his mother played guitar and he grew up listening to country music. He and Lofton Kline formed a semi-professional folk group called the Strangers Two, and then, with the addition of Susan Taylor, they became the Pozo-Seco Singers, the phrase being a geological term to denote a dry well. Handled by Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, they had major pop hits in the U.S. with "Time," "I Can Make It With You" and "Look What You've Done." Following Kline's departure, they employed several replacements, resulting in a lack of musical direction. After Williams had failed to turn the trio towards country music, they disbanded in 1971.
He then worked for his father-in-law but also wrote for Susan Taylor's solo album via Jack Clement's music publishing company. Clement asked Williams to record albums of his company's best songs, mainly with a view to attracting other performers. In 1973, Don Williams, Volume 1 was released on the fledgling JMI label and included such memorable songs as Bob McDill's apologia for growing old, "Amanda," and Williams' own "The Shelter of Your Eye." Williams' work was reissued by Dot Records, and Don Williams, Volume 2 included "Atta Way to Go" and "We Should Be Together." Williams then had a country No. 1 with Wayland Holyfield's "You're My Best Friend," which has become a standard and is the perennial sing-along anthem at his concerts. By now, the Williams' style had developed: gently paced love songs with straightforward arrangements, lyrics and sentiments. Williams was mining the same vein as Jim Reeves, but he eschewed Reeves' smartness by dressing like a ranch-hand. Besides having a huge contingent of female fans, Williams counted Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend among his admirers. Clapton recorded his country hit "Tulsa Time," written by Danny Flowers, a member of Williams' band.
Williams played a band member himself in the Burt Reynolds film W.W. & the Dixie Dance Kings and also appeared in Smokey and the Bandit 2. Williams' other successes include "Till the Rivers All Run Dry," "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend," "Lay Down Beside Me" and his only U.S. solo pop hit, "I Believe in You." Unlike most established country artists, he has not sought duet partners, although he and Emmylou Harris found success in 1981 with their version of Townes Van Zandt's "If I Needed You." Among the highlights of Williams' recording career is his interpretation of "Good Ol' Boys Like Me," McDill's homage to his southern roots. Moving to Capitol Records in the mid-'80s, Williams released such singles as "Heartbeat in the Darkness" and "Senorita," but the material was not as impressive. He took a sabbatical in 1988, but subsequent RCA Records recordings showed that nothing had changed.
In 1998, Williams released I Turn the Page on Giant Records, but the label soon closed its country music division. Following a live album in 2001, Williams retuned in 2004 with My Heart to You.
Maintaining his stress-free style, Williams continues to be a major concert attraction, especially in the U.K. and South Africa.
Williams initially started out as a songwriter for Jack Music Inc., since he lacked belief about going solo but then signed with JMI as a solo artist. His 1974 song "We Should Be Together" reached number five and he was signed on with ABC/Dot. His first single with ABC/Dot, "I Wouldn't Want to Live If You Didn't Love Me," became a number one hit, and was the first of a string of top ten hits he had between 1974 and 1991. In fact, only four of his 46 singles didn't make it to the Top Ten. Recently (as of 2012), he released the album And So It Goes.
From His Own Website.
They came to call Don Williams “the Gentle Giant” in the decades he was a dominating country hit maker because of his unique blend of commanding presence and that laid-back, easy style that has appealed to adult men and women alike—cutting across national and genre boundaries. If those personal and musical qualities stood out strongly across the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, they are all the more distinctive in 2012, when so many country and pop records seem to work as check off lists of somebody’s idea of how to be a man, or hard-sell attempts to indicate affection for a woman. Don Williams has never sounded like he felt the need to sell somebody something, or to prove anything.
On And So It Goes, available from Sugar Hill on June 19th, that winning, self-assured ease is again front and center, and the musical style that has made Don a ballad vocal model for performers ranging from Eric Clapton (with whom he’d traded songs—“Tulsa Time,” “Lay Down Sally”) to Keith Urban (who guests on this release). One listen to the characteristically right-on-target vocals on this first Don Williams recording in eight years and his admirers will be wondering what he’s done to maintain that strength over the hiatus.
“Well, there are things that I don’t do,” Don laughs. “I don’t do a whole lot of sitting around chit-chatting, laughing, and carrying on—especially when I’m on the road, where that just makes you tired, anyway. Even at home on the farm there are literally days on end that I may not say anything but for an hour or two a day.”
This man who so clearly loves the quiet home life can still fill an auditorium or stadium across the U.S., the U.K., Europe and Africa; his special role as an international ambassador for American country and pop music is ongoing and his musical appeal, he has long since been astonished to find, is about the same from the Central Time Zone to central Africa.
“The weird thing about that is—no; I don’t change my show to go play England or Nairobi. I can pretty much choose anything from my repertoire and it works wherever I am, and that still amazes me, because you’re talking about different cultures, sometimes different languages, and the whole nine yards.”
The hundreds of memorable songs in that repertoire—over fifty of them major hits—whether contemplative ballads, affecting love songs or change-up rhythm numbers, have always been a core Don Williams strength and focus. Don and long-time producer Garth Fundis, who returns in that role on this new album, each credit the other with having contributed to their own song-picking and sequencing skills—skills well put to shared use again when Nashville’s finest writers submitted hundreds of songs for consideration for Don’s return to recording. They both knew what they were looking for in selections that would appear on And So It Goes:
“They’re very well written, they’re interesting, and the melody and the lyric are saying the same thing,” Don says. “Even when we’re starting looking for the songs, just experimenting, Garth and I are just in agreement; we just want to make good music that touches our hearts and, hopefully, touches others’ in the process. For many years, though, Garth has fussed at me about one thing— that we need to be sure and do whatever song that I wrote, because I would just pass over it. I get more excited about a new song that I’ve just heard than I do my own material!” (There are, in fact, two Don Williams co-writes among the ten outstanding songs on this new release.)
Riding and crossing the line between country and pop, and all the more distinctive for doing it, Don brought a sound and sensibility to the country charts that proved a smash—a development that was initially a surprise even to him.
“When I was just a wee lad,” he recalls, “I really appreciated people like Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash and Jim Reeves; all of those guys back then meant a lot to me, but at the same time, I really loved Brook Benton, and the Platters and all of those people. But even when I was ‘in pop’ myself, with everything that I wrote, the only people who really seemed to appreciate it were country fans. That has to tell you a little bit about where your heart’s at, whether your head agrees with it or not!”
Born in Floydada, Florida in 1939 and growing up near Corpus Christi, Texas, Don was playing guitar by age twelve, taught by his mother, and performed in folk, country and rock bands as a teenager. He first gained musical attention as a member of the pop folk trio The Pozo Seco Singers, which had six pop chart hits in 1966-’67, then was signed as a songwriter by Nashville’s Cowboy Jack Clement in 1971—the sort of songwriter whose demos demanded attention. Between 1974 and 1991, Don had at least one major hit every year, including such country standards to be as “ Good Ole Boys Like Me,” “Till the Rivers All Run Dry,” “It Must Be Love,” “I’m Just a Country Boy,” “Amanda” and “I Believe in You.” He also had a hit duet with Emmylou Harris on Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You.” Don was the CMA Male Vocalist of the Year in 1978; his “Tulsa Time” was the ACM Record of the Year for 1979.
In 2010, Don received country music’s highest honor, with his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Don Williams died on 8 september 2017 after a short illness. He was 78 years old.
(2) Founder and owner of Mojuba & A.R.T.less Records and one half of the Tokomak Records company. He is the creative force behind these imprints and Tokomak's main founding member. His musical influences ranges from Classic, Funk and Jazz via Drum & Bass and Trip Hop to his beloved Detroit Techno and US House, which can be still enjoyed throughout his DJ-Sets. After a few releases on the legendary Pure Plastic imprint, he delivers tracks of his own brand of funk on labels like Rewired, Styrax Leaves and 100% Pure.
Rose
Don Williams Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razer
That leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger
An endless aching need
I say love, it is a flower
It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying
That never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
That you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose
The song opens up with two contrasting ideas about love. The first verse presents us with two images - ‘love is a river that drowns the tender reed’ and ‘love is a razer that leaves your soul to bleed.’ Essentially, it is telling us that while love can seem beautiful and gentle like a river, it has the ability to hurt and even destroy, much like a razor. The second verse similarly contrasts the idea of love, revealing the many interpretations it has. ‘Some say love, it is a hunger; an endless aching need.’ In this line, love is portrayed as something intense and painful. With ‘I say love, it is a flower, and you, its only seed,’ Don Williams offers up his personal take on love - that it is something delicate that requires care and nurturing to grow.
In the chorus, Don Williams highlights the things that we allow to hold us back from love. It is ‘the heart afraid of breaking’ that never learns to dance, and ‘the dream afraid of waking’ that never takes the chance. ‘It’s the one who won’t be taken’ who cannot seem to give, and ‘the soul afraid of dying’ who never learns to live. Essentially, Williams is saying that it is natural to feel scared about love, but that we should not let that fear stop us from experiencing all the wonder and joy that it can bring.
The song ultimately has a message of hope – reminding us that however wintery and harsh our situation seems, something beautiful can still grow from it. While ‘love is a flower, and you, its only seed,’ these lyrics suggest that there is potential within us for something great to blossom. As Williams sings, ‘far beneath the bitter snow, lies the seed that with the sun’s love, in the spring, becomes the rose.’
Line by Line Meaning
Some say love, it is a river
Some people describe love as an unstoppable flow.
That drowns the tender reed
It can overwhelm the weak and fragile aspects of ourselves.
Some say love, it is a razer
Others compare love to a sharp and painful weapon.
That leaves your soul to bleed
Because of its sharpness, love can leave us hurt and wounded.
Some say love, it is a hunger
For some, love feels like an insatiable, gnawing desire.
An endless aching need
It's a feeling that never really goes away and can be difficult to satisfy.
I say love, it is a flower
Instead of seeing love as harsh and painful, I view it as something beautiful and delicate.
And you, it's only seed
You are the potential for love, waiting to be nurtured and grown.
It's the heart afraid of breaking
Sometimes, the fear of getting hurt can prevent us from fully experiencing love.
That never learns to dance
We miss out on the joy and beauty of love when we're too afraid to take risks.
It's the dream afraid of waking
Some people are so afraid of losing love that they never fully let themselves experience it.
That never takes the chance
They let their fears keep them from experiencing the beauty of love.
It's the one who won't be taken
Some people are too guarded and closed off to let love in.
Who cannot seem to give
They struggle to express love and affection for others.
And the soul afraid of dying
The fear of death can make us hesitate to open ourselves up to the transformative power of love.
That never learns to live
When we let our fears hold us back, we miss out on experiencing the fullness of life.
When the night has been too lonely
During difficult and trying times, it can feel like love is far away.
And the road has been too long
Journeys toward love can be challenging and exhausting.
That you think that love is only
At times, it can feel like love only exists for other people.
For the lucky and the strong
Those who seem to have everything going for them are the ones who get to experience love.
Just remember in the winter
Even when it feels like love is dormant and inaccessible, it's always still there.
Far beneath the bitter snow
Love's potential can be hidden away and buried deep within us.
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
With the right kind of nurturing and care, love can blossom and grow within us.
In the spring becomes the rose
Just like a rose blooms in its time, love can bring beauty and wonder to our lives.
Lyrics © DistroKid, BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Royalty Network, Capitol CMG Publishing, Iricom US Ltd, Broma 16, Peermusic Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Amanda McBroom
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@renae232323
SORRY ALL CAPS (MY VISION IS FADING DUE TO AN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE), THIS SONG REMINDS ME OF MY HUSBAND!! HE PASSED AWAY OCT. 3, 2014, 15 MONTHS AGO. HE WAS ONLY 60 YEARS OLD. HE WAS MY EVERYTHING!! A GENTLE GIANT AT 6'4" 250 LBS, LONG HAIR, BEARDED TRUCK DRIVER THAT I CALL "THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND". WE RAISED 3 CHILDREN TOGETHER AND HAVE 7 GRANDCHILDREN, AND OH HOW THEY LOVED THEIR "BUMPA". I AM HAVING SUCH A DIFFICULT TIME GRIEVING. I NEVER IMAGINED I WOULD BE A WIDOW AT 46 YEARS OLD. HE WORKED HARD AND WAS EXPOSED TO NUMEROUS ROCK PRODUCTS DURING HIS OVER 30 YEARS DRIVING A SEMI, IT CAUSED HIM TO DEVELOP SILICOSIS(BLACK LUNG DISEASE). HE WAS ON HOME HOSPICE AND I BEING A NURSE, STOPPED WORKING TO BE HOME WITH HIM, I WOULD NOT CHANGE THAT FOR THE WORLD. ONE OF OUR GRANDSON'S HAS MY HUSBANDS MIDDLE NAME AND MY DAUGHTER, SON-IN-LAW & GRANDSON LIVE IN A HOME ON OUR FARM, SO MY HUSBAND GOT TO SEE HIM EVERYDAY!! HE JUST TURNED 5 YEARS OLD THE OTHER DAY AND STILL ASKS WHEN HIS BUMPA IS COMING BACK FROM HEAVEN, HE SAYS "JESUS MADE HIM NOT SICK ANYMORE GAMMIE SO HE'S COMING BACK". IT BREAKS MY HEART!!! HE SAVES THINGS FOR HIS BUMPA, CARS, ROCKS, PICTURES HE HAS DRAWN AND WHEN I GENTLY TELL HIM THAT HE IS NOT COMING BACK, HE OFTEN TIMES TELLS ME "GAMMIE I DON'T LIKE YOU BECAUSE MY BUMPA IS GONE". IT HURTS A BIT, BUT I UNDERSTAND THE FACT THAT HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND PERMANENT!! IF YOU PRAY, PLEASE KEEP MY FAMILY IN YOUR PRAYERS!! THANK YOU & GOD BLESS
@renae232323
GOD BLESS YOU FOR REACHING OUT TO ME!! MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS
@loball1
this is going to sound harsh... however once the sting fade think deeply and the light will shine. Stop reliving the past... listen to the 5 year old, he know more than you think. You see his faith, belief, understanding hasn't been tainted by adults and all the various games. is he says he's coming back shouldn't you be looking forward??? instead of back like Lot's wife? Dis-ease... is the God you serve diseased? Well actually that would depend on the fact of whether you are a daughter (son) of God or a servant. So what's it gonna be...? Gunman wimp out and play the victim of a body you were given dominion over, so that perhaps you may garner the sympathetic yet vain sniveling Babel of other so called Christ like individuals. Silver and gold have I none, but such that I have I give unto thee... rise up and walk!!! those grand babies need your strength. There is much love.
@renae232323
I AM A DAUGHTER OF CHRIST AND I HAVE ABOUNDING FAITH THAT OUR PRECIOUS SAVIOR WILL SEE ME THROUGH THIS TIME OF GRIEF. YOUR WORDS WERE ENLIGHTENING AND I IN NO WAY TAKE OFFENSE TO THEM, AS A CHRISTIAN I RESPECT OTHERS OPINIONS. I WILL SAY THIS, GRIEVING IS A JOURNEY THAT IS A DIFFERENT FOR EVERY PERSON. I STAY IN GODS WORD EVERYDAY AND LEAN ON HIM. I'M NOT LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY, I'M ASKING FOR PRAYERS TO SEE OUR FAMILY THROUGH THIS LOSS.
"THE LORD IS CLOSE TO THE BROKENHEARTED AND SAVES THOSE WHO ARE CRUSHED IN SPIRIT" PSALM 34:18.......MAY GOD BLESS YOU TODAY AND EVERYDAY
@renae232323
Guus van Oosterhout THANK YOU AND MAY GOD CONTINUE TO USE YOU TO REACH OUT TO THOSE IN NEED OF REMINDING OF GODS UNWAVERING LOVE!!
@loball1
According to Isiah 42: 8 "I AM is God " and what ever you put after I am you become... Those who have ears, let them hear.
I am called to be a blessing... May the fire of Gods love engulf you , that you may become that beacon for all those God has given to you. Rise and shine sister...
@actionhomebuyers
True heartfelt beauty in Don’s version of this song.
Absolutely THE best version of this lovely song ever done.
@kathybiggs3440
What a voice. So soothing. A true legend!🙏💖
@user-qg3ho5yh9t
Don is a lovely singer ❤😊😅
@allurakowalski1312
God how I miss seeing this wonderful Man, Don please sing to all those in Heaven that loved you down here . I still, play your music and I'll always Love you for the man you were and your standards . Allura.