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Jess Williamson

Singer and songwriter Jess Williamson is an artist whose music looks to the past for inspiration but is performed with an updated outlook and emotional range that give it a thoroughly contemporary feel. Williamson's spare and evocative melodies and poetic, deeply personal lyrics are influenced by psychedelia and the songwriters' movement of the '70s, yet the breathy soprano voice and blend of acoustic and electric textures in her performances put her in step with her indie folk contemporaries. Williamson's music was at its simplest and most introspective on her 2014 debut album, Native State, while 2018's Cosmic Wink broadened her range with fuller arrangements and more adventurous production. 2020's Sorceress found her subtly incorporating elements of electronic music and vintage pop. Working with producer Brad Cook, she released both 2022's I Walked with You a Ways (a collaboration with Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield) and 2023's Time Ain't Accidental, her emotive fifth album. Jess Williamson was born and raised in a suburb near Dallas, Texas, an only child whose parents enjoyed listening to blues, folk, and country music, in particular Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and the Judds. Williamson was still in grade school when she discovered she loved singing, and would sometimes entertain her classmates during recess with her renditions of favorite tunes. It was when Williamson moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas that her interest in music moved to the next level. She was studying photojournalism and began photographing and writing about local bands for the university's newspaper, and was soon hosting a show on the campus radio station. After hearing Ralph White, formerly of the Bad Livers, play a solo set on the banjo at a house concert, she took up the instrument herself, and kept up with it after she relocated to New York City to do graduate work. Williamson quit school to pursue music full-time, and formed a short-lived band in New York called Rattlesnake before returning to Austin. She started writing songs and expanded her skills to include guitar and keyboards, and in 2011 she self-released a CD-R EP, Medicine Wheel//Death Songs. Williamson launched her own Brutal Honest label to issue her first full-length album, 2014's Native State, initially released in a limited pressing of 300 LPs on red, white, and blue vinyl meant to resemble the Texas flag. Brutal Honest issued Williamson's second album, Heart Song, in 2016. As her reputation spread, she was approached by the established indie label Mexican Summer, which released her third album, 2018's Cosmic Wink and coincided with Williamson leaving Austin for Los Angeles, where she took inspiration in the energy and ambience of her new hometown. 2020's Sorceress was her most ambitious project to date, with the songs written in Los Angeles, the basic tracks recorded in New York City, and the overdubs and mixing done in Dripping Springs, Texas. It was also around 2020 that Williamson underwent a difficult break-up with a longtime romantic partner and collaborator. The change, while painful, brought other opportunities. She formed the collaborative duo Plains with Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield and together they recorded 2022's Brad Cook-produced I Walked with You a Ways, an album of emotionally raw country songs. Equally fortifying tours followed, including stints with Weyes Blood, Kevin Morby, and José González. She also began splitting her time between Los Angeles and her native West Texas, where experiences like rescuing a dog by the side of the road and falling in love again continued to buoy her newfound sense of creative purpose. She returned to the studio with Cook and in 2023 brought all of the turmoil and change she experienced to bear on her fifth solo album, Time Ain't Accidental.
© Mark Deming /TiVo
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Discography

19 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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