Josh Williams

by Kervin Kerfoot, 10/22/2004

An Interview with Josh Williams

BMP: Tell me about your solo project.

JOSH: This is my second solo project. After I started singing the lead vocals for the band Special Consensus, Tom Riggs of Pinecastle Records invited me to do a series of solo projects on the label. I had recorded for Copper Creek Records with my band Josh Williams and High Gear when I was in high school. I recorded two projects for Copper Creek but both were band projects, not solo projects. I was proud to record Now That You’re Gone on Pinecastle in 2001. That album did very well for us and I think the new one is going to do even better. When I started with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage in December of 2003, the Lonesome Highway project was already completed. With both my solo projects I hope to show the feeling that the writer of each song intended to project. I’m pretty particular about the songs I select and actually went through somewhere over a thousand pitched tracks before I settled on the 12 cuts on each project. The first album was all vocals but I’ve included an instrumental I wrote on the Lonesome Highway project just to break it up a little.

BMP: Tell me about a few of your favorite songs.

JOSH: Don Rigsby helped me with both of these solo projects as producer. He brought in some material and I had received a lot of material from the Nashville writer’s community. Going into this project, I knew that I wanted to record one of my own songs, Down Another Lonesome Highway, along with a song that Ron Spears and Charlie Edsall from the Within Tradition band wrote called Cold Virginia Rain. I also wanted to record a tune that I could play Scruggs-style guitar on, and I selected a song called Will You Meet Me Over There that my friend Ron Stewart had written several years ago. Tom T. and Dixie Hall gave me the tune Killer On The Loose and I liked it right away. I wanted to record the old Flatt and Scruggs tune Legend of the Johnson Boys so Don and I worked up the arrangement for it with the tenor being followed by the high baritone, a couple of weeks before we went into the studio. I’m a big fan of classic swing-style country done with traditional bluegrass instrumentation so the tune Don’t Stop Now from Smiling Jim Eanes was a natural for this project. We recorded the bulk of the material at Brick Shy Audio just outside Franklin, Tennessee, the studio belonging to Don’s brother, Ron Rigsby. Getting to record with such a fantastic bunch of musicians and having Tom T. and Dixie stop by just to see how things were going were probably the highlights.

BMP: What guest artists did you work with this time around?

JOSH: I got to work with some of the best musicians and vocalists in the business. My biggest hero in the world, J.D. Crowe, came down to record with me again, as he did on the first solo project. It is always an honor to get to play music with Crowe. I’ve been very fortunate to get to work with him quite a bit, filling in as guitar player and lead singer for The New South when Rickey Wasson couldn’t make a show. He honored me when he agreed to play banjo on my solo showcase at the 2002 IBMA. He is the banjo player’s banjo player. The world’s finest bass player, Missy Raines, has played on both my solo projects, too. So have Randy Kohrs, Don Rigsby and Ron Stewart. The results of the first album were so good that I would have been silly not to use these folks again. I was thrilled to have Kristin Scott Benson play banjo on several tracks on Lonesome Highway. She is one outstanding musician. While I was working with J.D. Crowe I realized how good Dwight McCall’s tenor sounded with my lead voice, so I asked him to be a part of this project. I sure like to sing with him.

BMP: Tell me about how you wrote Down Another Lonesome Highway and Golden Pond Getaway.

JOSH: Down Another Lonesome Highway came to me one night as I was driving the Special Consensus bus on a long stretch of highway out in the Northwest somewhere. It was late and all the other guys in the band were sleeping. I guess the long, straight highway just gave me the tune as I drove along. All of us that travel in the music business end up spending a lot of time in places that we probably wouldn’t choose to be spending time, but are forced to in order to do the next show. There are many times when we wish we were with friends and family, but we can’t be. I guess this song says what a lot of folks feel when things are not going well with the people we love but can’t be at home to work on patching things up. Golden Pond Getaway is one of those instrumental numbers that started in my head as a chord progression and the melody just sort of made its way out from there. I think it may be the best instrumental I’ve written to date. It is a tune that feels good to play, and the folks I recorded with really kicked its butt!

BMP: Where were you born and where do you live now?

JOSH: I was born and raised in Benton, Kentucky. I lived there with my parents until the summer of 2003 when I moved to Nashville. Clayton Campbell, a long-time friend that I grew up with, and a really good fiddle player, shares an apartment with me just west of Nashville.

BMP: Who were your influences?

JOSH: The first person that really influenced me to play guitar was Doc Watson, on the Strictly Instrumental album with Flatt and Scruggs. My Dad had bought this album when it first came out on LP and we played it a lot at home. I had never heard anyone do that kind of flat-picking before Doc. He just blew me away. I started teaching myself to play guitar when I was about 10 or 11 years old. When I was about 12 my Dad bought me a Tony Rice album and I was hooked for sure. I guess I’d say that Doc Watson, Tony Rice and Dan Tyminski were my biggest guitar influences.

BMP: Tell me about your first instruments?

JOSH: My grandmother played a ukulele and taught me to chord and strum it when I was about six or seven years old, and then my folks got me a little battery operated keyboard for Christmas. I had a lot of fun with it, but was never serious about playing it. My Mom and Dad kept encouraging me to play music, but I didn’t know what instrument I wanted to play. My family was always having friends over to play and sing or we would visit some other family’s home and play and sing. My Dad played guitar and my uncle played fiddle. I decided I wanted to play banjo after seeing Mike Snider burn up a tune on Hee-Haw one night, and my Dad set me up with banjo lessons from Scottie Henson. Scottie is a great banjo player and a great banjo teacher. I worked with him for a little over two years, and he told my folks he really couldn’t teach me anymore. After Scottie, I studied with Alison Brown for about three months and she told me I didn’t need her either. Anyway, my first instrument was a Lotus LB 85 banjo. I got a Deering Golden Era banjo for the 10th birthday that I used to record all of my early projects.

BMP: Tell me about the instruments you have now.

JOSH: My main instrument today is of course guitar. I play a custom made Kendrick guitar that I truly believe is the finest guitar I have ever played. It was made for me by Neil Kendrick. He is a super luthier in Frenchburg, Kentucky. The guitar is made to the specs of a pre-war Herringbone. He sized the neck and the string spacing to my specs and truly built me an incredible guitar. I also have and play a 1952 Martin D-18 when I want that more mellow mahogany tone. Neil is getting ready to build me a mahogany version of my Kendrick. I play a Gibson “Adam Steffey” model mandolin that is one of the best mandolins I have ever played. I endorse Gibson, but I occasionally still play my Gilchrist mandolin that I’ve had since 1994. When I play banjo I play a Gibson RB 75 “J.D. Crowe” model or my Deering Golden Era. I also have a Deering Custom “Josh Williams” prototype model top-tension banjo that is made of Brazilian rosewood. I also occasionally play a wonderful old grafted neck fiddle that the great Randy Howard found for me in Nashville. I also have a great 1905 Gibson Mandola.

BMP: How did you join Special Consensus?

JOSH: Andrea Roberts, the founder of Petticoat Junction, adopted me as ‘the little brother she never wanted’ when I was playing with The Kentucky Young’uns. By the time I was a senior in high school she was playing bass for the Special Consensus. At IBMA in 1998, she told me that Colby Maddox was quitting the Special Consensus and they were looking for a mandolin player. I auditioned for the job during the Christmas break from school and they hired me. I started with Greg in May of 1999 and stayed with him until December of 2003. The biggest highlights of my time with Special Consensus was the recording of our last album together, Route 10, and our first ever appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. How I went with Rhonda Vincent is another story. Rhonda called me while I was on the road with Special Consensus in North Dakota. She told me she was looking for a guitar player and wanted me to audition for the job. I had no intention of accepting the job if she happened to offer it to me because I was happy playing with Special Consensus. When I got to the audition however things changed. I was there playing guitar with her, Mickey Harris, Kenny Ingram and Hunter Berry - good musicians every one, but when we started doing some vocals it felt really good. Something just clicked, the blend was there and it just felt good! I had a long heart-to-heart talk with Greg and ended up accepting the job. The first show I did with her was An Acoustic Country Christmas on CMT. I am looking forward to getting to record with RV&R on the upcoming Live DVD/CD project in St. Louis. Things have worked out for this to be the first recording Rhonda has done with her own band and I am delighted to get to be a part of that. I don’t know how things could get much better for a sideman in bluegrass music than to be working with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. I’m enjoying working with what I think is the best band in the bluegrass. Rhonda, Kenny, Mickey and Hunter are great musicians and great people to travel with. I grew up seeing re-runs of the Flatt and Scruggs TV shows sponsored by Martha White and now I’m getting to be part of continuing that legend. After all, there are not a lot of people as fortunate as I am to be getting to making a living doing what I really love to do. For the present, I am very happy where I am.

reprinted with permission from
Sept/Oct 04 Bluegrass Profiles Magazine