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This interview gets deeply emotional into H. Jack Williams' new album "Halfway To Hell".
Stories from a traumatic childhood are just the surface of this new album and we get deep into the music.

Acclaimed songwriter, composer and artist, H. Jack Williams has released a deeply emotional video for “Beat Me Again” off his new album, Halfway To Hell. The video was directed and produced by the notable and esteemed actor, W. Earl Brown, from Deadwood, Draft Day, Something About Mary, Black Mass and more along with photo director, Josh Shreve. The scene was shot at Mt Olivet Cemetery in Nashville of H. Jack WIlliams singing at his father's grave with female vocals added by Brandy Zdan. The song was co-written by Adam Box, H. Jack Williams and W. Earl Brown. Production and mixing was done at Gilded Palace by Adam Box. One of Nashville's top of the line session musicians, Matt Combs, provided all the strings on “Beat Me Again.”

H. Jack Williams was abused and beaten viciously by his father growing up, and he has channeled the feelings into the feelings on this new project in hopes others can see how he has prospered and followed his dreams of being an acclaimed songwriter. He has placed several songs on the Kevin Costner hit series, Yellowstone. Watch the video on the official artist YouTube channel https://youtu.be/yh6tmBz7rrM.

“I think the video is inspired and both of you shine on in black and white. Great choices. Congratulations,” offered Kevin Costner.

Brandy Zdan shared, “When Jack asked me to be a part of this song and video I knew it was something special. A song of healing and hope for himself and hopefully for many others who hear it.”

“The song birthed almost instantaneously. The video came in a dream. They were gifts - people were meant to hear this,” expressed director W. Earl Brown.

H. Jack Williams has been described as a lyrical illustrator and a rugged poet has recorded and released an impassioned and powerful album depicting his abuse as a young child, Halfway To Hell. The ten song project was co-written by Williams on all but one song with production and mixing on all songs but one, at Gilded Palace by Adam Box, best known for playing drums with the country duo Brothers Osborne. Jim “Moose” Brown produced “Road To Hell.”

Stream and download Halfway To Hell on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Pandora and more digital music platforms at https://orcd.co/hjwhalfwaytohell.

Legendary Rock photographer Carl Dunn designed the cover artwork Halfway To Hell and captured all the photographs for the promotional assets used for socials and website.

Stay current with H. Jack Williamson social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Music is available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Download on Amazon Music and iTunes. Watch video content on YouTube and stay current with all updates on his website hjackwilliamsmusic.com.

About H. Jack Williams:
You’d be hard-pressed to find a life, a career or a body of work quite like that of singer, songwriter, performer, composer H. Jack Williams. Jack himself credits equal parts luck, talent and tenacity. “My whole life, I’ve gone out and gotten stuff done,” he says. “I think I have unique emotional connections within me, and I’ve always found a way to make that connection musically.” But for one of Nashville’s hardest working songwriters and most in-demand co-writers – and now with flourishing work in film and television, it’s been a one-of-a-kind 40+ year ride with some of the biggest names in Folk, Rock and Country. And in many ways, he’s just getting started.
Raised in the tiny town of Eureka, Florida, Williams began writing songs shortly after his 1971 discharge from the US Marines Force Recon. It was while working in Atlanta as a trained Escoffier chef and moonlighting as a roadie that Williams went after his first break by knocking on Richie Havens’ hotel room door. “Actually banged on it all night long,” Jack laughs, “until he opened the door and I handed him a cassette.” The Woodstock icon invited Jack to New York City to be his opening act, eventually playing on and producing the demo that got Jack a $500 advance from Clive Davis (who insisted on first playing Jack the demo of ‘Mandy’). By 1974, Jack was back cooking in Atlanta when he spotted a tour bus belonging to The Who. Still in his chef whites, Williams approached the road crew and boldly asked for an introduction to Roger Daltrey. “I knew Roger loved songwriters,” Jack says,“ and Pete Townsend knew songs.” Williams was ushered backstage that night and spent the next few months on tour with the band, eventually signing a deal – his first – with the publishing company owned by Daltrey, Townsend and Who manager Bill Curbishley. For two years and dozens of unmentionable road stories, Jack was mentored by one of the greatest acts in rock history. Towards the end of his Who deal, Williams got a phone call from Ken Hensley, Keyboardist and primary songwriter of UK proto-metal rockers Uriah Heep, who invited Jack to move to London as the band’s first outside in-house songwriter. Jack jumped at the invite, and amid opening UK shows for Havens and demo sessions with neighbors like Alvin Lee and George Harrison, Uriah Heep would record four of Jack’s songs for the Gold albums Innocent Victim and Firefly. But it was a group of fellow small-town Florida boys that triggered the next chapter of Jack’s career. “Lynyrd Skynyrd came to London for their Knebworth concert”, Jack explains. “I got to know the band, played Ronnie Van Zant some of my songs, and he suggested I come to Florida and be part of the Southern Rock scene.”
Williams moved back to the states, founding the Jacksonville-based band Streets Of Ice, landing cuts with acts like Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet, and writing with Gregg Allman. Dickey Betts became a good friend and began producing the Streets Of Ice project. But when the band imploded just before signing their major label deal, Betts suggested that Jack’s songwriting skills could find a full-time home in Nashville. With a $50 loan and a one-way bus ticket, Williams landed in Nashville and signed a publishing deal with The Oak Ridge Boys, who soon recorded Jack’s songs ‘Seasons’ and ‘Everybody Wins’. Jack then had his first major hit, co-writing with Allman Brothers Band member Warren Haynes – Gregg Allman’s ‘Just Before The Bullets Fly’. But when the mid-‘90s Country Boom began to fade, Williams returned to his culinary background, opening restaurants in North Carolina, Memphis and Olympia, and running kitchen teams on research vessels in the Aleutian Islands and Azores, and on supply ships during the Gulf War, for which he earned a Medal of Bravery from President Bush. “I’d also played blues clubs in Seattle,” Jack adds, “which is how Leonard Chess signed me to a writing deal with Chess Records. So I guess we can add ‘Blues Artist’ to the list, too.”
Williams returned to Nashville in 2005, owning a catering business while landing cuts with artists that included Montgomery Gentry, Black Stone Cherry, and on the MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN Soundtrack. He signed a new publishing deal with Lynn Gann Music Enterprises in 2015, scoring even more cuts that included Canadian artist Aaron Pritchett’s Top 10 hit ‘Dirt Road In ‘Em.’ “When it comes to commercial radio stuff, I write like a gunfighter,” Jack says. “But at a certain point, I couldn’t write another line about drinking beer in the back of a truck with a girl. I needed to find the soul of my music again.”
Jack began writing songs reflective of his lifetime of not only struggles, but his continued sense of hope. He would soon – in more ways than one – find his own voice. “Pete Townsend once told me, ‘Always hire a great singer’,” Jack explains. “I never believed my vocals were that strong, which is why I always used other singers for my demos. But I began participating in singer/songwriter nights here in Nashville and got the kind of reaction I’d never received before. When I started to sing what’s in my heart, everything began to change.”
Williams soon connected with Academy Award winner Kevin Costner, whose band Kevin Costner & Modern West had recorded two of Jack’s songs (including the Top 20 hit ‘Love Shine’), leading Costner to cut an additional five Jack tracks for his hit TV series’ TALES FROM YELLOWSTONE soundtrack. Jack signed with Anthem Entertainment for additional film & television work, and has since collaborated with award-winning Welsh composer John Hardy. And his 2020 EP (Already Dead) produced by Brothers Osborne’s Adam Box, became – after nearly five decades of music and adventure fit for a dozen lives – H. H. Jack Williams’ first solo release. “I feel like a 20-year-old singer/songwriter again,” Jack says, with the characteristic combination of fortitude and poignancy that still defines his life, his career, and his very best work to come. “I’m a survivor, and I keep pushing forward. I believe that my A-game has just begun.” Stay current with H. Jack Williamsat http://hjackwilliamsmusic.com/.

From college professor to award-winning singer and songwriter, that’s Carol Markstrom. Twice named Western Female Vocalist of the Year, Carol saddles up to the ranch, guitar in hand, to speak with Russell and Alan about her career path and many successes including her most recent album “Mile After Mile.”

 

This episode of BIC talks is an extract from a BIC Streams session, where Zubin Balaporia and Shwetant Kumar take us on a journey celebrating Vanraj Bhatia's music and memory on what would have been his 94th birthday.

You could say Vanraj Bhatia’s music crosses boundaries the way people cross the street! He was trained in Indian classical music from his schooldays, and in western classical music in London and in Paris, where he was Nadia Boulanger’s only Indian student. Frequently working with the best musicians and the latest technology in India, Bhatia created music that was as impossible to pigeonhole as was his colourful personality. His 60-year career spanned multiple disciplines: cinema, television, documentaries, major theatre productions, spiritual music, advertising jingles (7000 of them!), western classical and also new age music. It is very likely that every person in India knows at least one piece of music by him – even if they’ve never heard of him! We take this opportunity to celebrate Vanraj, his life and his music in our own small way.

“What makes one song different from the next is usually in the melody and I find melody in words.”

Adam Lopez is an American roots musician who lives in Nashville. Hear how Adam got his start in music, how running inspires songs, and who are his biggest musical influences. Adam shares his latest album with Luis entitled Vol. 1 The Love We Were Born. Songs heard on this episode include Honest Man, The Love We Were Born, The Architects Of Oppression, Hello Stranger, Lightening, Suicide Doors, The Loony Tune, One Week In April, and Free Love.

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