Robin and Linda Williams

Visions Of Love

produced by
JGarrison Keillor

recorded and mixed
at

Forrester Studios
Edina, MN
by SamHudson

mastered by
David Glasser
at
Airshow Mastering
Boulder, CO

Musicians
    LINDA WILLIAMS vocals, guitar, banjo

    ROBIN WILLIAMS vocals, guitar, harmonica

    RICHARD DWORSKY piano



Robin and Linda Williams make their home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, in an old frame house, built around a log cabin, in the country outside Staunton. They tour widely around the country for about six months of the year. Linda is a native of Anniston, Alabama, and Robin was bortn in Charlotte, North Carolina, the son of a Presbyterian minister. They met in June, 1971, in Myrtle Beach where Linda, having taught sixth grade for two years, was visiting her parents and Robin, a full-time musician on the coffeehouse circuit, was visitin his.

Linda taught school another year and they started performing together in 1973, touring in a Volkswagon Beetle. Their first album came out in 1975 through connections they made sleeping on the floors of friends' apartments in the Minneapolis folk music scene. The same year, they made their first appearance on the "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show and traded in their trusty Beetle on a reconditioned Volkswagen van. Not, in retrospect, a good move.

A serries of critically acclaimed albums came out over the next decade, made up mostly of original material with some traditional songs. The Volkswagen van died and was replaced by a Chevy can ourfitted with a beanbag chair for a back seat.

In 1989, the recorded All Broken Hearts Are The Same, their debut CD for Sugar Hill Records. Somewhere around this time they instituted the "Don't book the gig if you can't buy the bed" rule. They began touring with a band (Their Fine Group) and by 1993 they purchased a small band bus that enabled them to keep up on a cross country tour with Mary Chapin Carpenter. In 1996, their Sugar For Sugar CD spent 13 weeks on the Americana Top Ten chart. Their next two CD's, Devil Of A Dream and In The Company Of Strangers, did even better. The bus and the band kept them busy touring in support of these releases.

They have won numersous music awards and have appeared on "The Grand Ole Opry," "Austin City Limits," "Mountain Stage," and "Music City tonight" and have owned numerous vechiles.

Visions Of Love is their ninth release with the Sugar Hill. Robin and Linda are on their secon bus now.

GK



    1) I'll Twine 'Mid The Ringlets
    Maude Irving & J.B. Webster
    arr. by R. & L. Williams (Songs for Dixie, BMI)
    Most people know this as the Carter Family song, Wildwood Flower. Most of the lyrics came from Pete Wernick's Bluegrass Songbook. An audience member at Byron Berline's Double Stop Fiddle Shop in Guthrie, OK, gave the last line of the first verse to us.

    2) AFTER THE FIRE IS GONE
    L.E. White,
    Twitty Bird Music Publishing Co., BMI)
    A classic conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn duet. .

    3) YOU'RE RUNNING WILD
    Ray Edenton & dan Winters
    Acuff Rose Music, Inc., BMI)
    A Louvin Brothers duet that may refer to a spouse of one of the Brother's studio band members, but how would we know!.

    4) RAMBLIN' MAN
    Hank Williams Acuff-Rose Music/Hiram Music
    Admin. by Rightsong Music Inc, BMI)
    A Hank Williams song that we've sung since our early days together. Robin did this track in one take on the first day of recording, late in the afternoon. Just sat down and sang it

    5)WASTINF MY TIME, WASTING MY LOVE ON YOU
    Leslie Warren
    Warner Bros
    Ventuti Orchestra song learned from Paul Geremia twenty years ago.

    6)TOO LATE, TOO LATE
    Lynn Davis
    Acuff Rose Music, Inc., BMI)
    This is a Mollie O'Day song that we learned from Uncle Walt's Band and have used for a sound check song ever since.

    7MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES
    Jack Neville & Jimmie Rodgers
    Peer International Publishing Publishing, BMI
    From "The Father of Country Music," Jimmie Rodgers. This has b een in our repertorie for years.
    8) THE BLUES COME AROUND
    Hank Williams Acuff-Rose Music/Hiram Music
    Admin. by Rightsong Music Inc, BMI)
    From Hank Williams again. We've sung this for years around home.

    9) HUNGRY EYES

    Merle Haggard
    Sony/ATV Songs, LLC/Tree Publishing Co., BMI
    This is Merle Haggard, of course. Four decades he's been going and he's still a great songwriter and singer and one of the hardest working recording artists in the business. We suppose this song is autobiographical and hope Merle likes our version.

    10) WASH ME IN THY PRECIOUS BLOOD
    traditional
    arr. by R. & L. Williams (Songs for Dixie, BMI)
    This is a combination of two traditional hyms. The Stanley Brothers recorded a 3/4 time version and Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrad recorded another. We combined the two and put the whole thing in 4/4 time.

    11) KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING
    Ivan Novello & Lena Guilbert Ford
    Chappell & Co. Inc., ASCAP
    A piano-bench favorite that we remembered when we heard Mike Craver sing it and then we stole it for a benefit for the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Museum in Stuton, VA.

    12) WANDERRING BOY
    traditional
    arr. by R. & L. Williams (Songs for Dixie, BMI)
    This is from the great Roscoe Holcomb of Daisy, Kentucky. We two and Peter Ostroushko used to sing this in the late 70s so it's fitting that he play on this cut.

    13) IF I SHOULD FALL BEHIND
    Bruce Springsteen /
    (1992 Bruce Springsteen, ASCAP)
    This song spoke to us the first time we heard it. We have spent over 30 years, each of us, either falling behind or waiting for the other.






Return to:
R&L's homepage Welcome Biography Discography Band On the Air Festivals
Tour Info Newsclips Order CDs Music Links Clubs Yak-Yak-Yak Concerts