 
Melvin
Williams is an American traditional gospel roots singer, songwriter and
producer. For more than five decades, Melvin Williams continues to enrich
his solid foundation as one of Gospel Music’s most notable voices
across the world at Performing Arts Theatres, the White House, Music Conservatories,
Civic Centers, Festivals, Colleges, Churches, on radio, television…Melvin
Williams is everywhere singing Traditional Gospel Music & Gospel Classics!
His
most recent accomplishment, an EMMY nomination
for his TV special “Melvin Williams: Down Home Gospel”
airing in over 200 PBS (Public Broadcasting
Service) markets nationwide that compliment his 7-GRAMMY nominations,
and 19-Stellar Awards over his music career.
Williams’ distinctive, soulful vocal tone and high-energy, emotion-filled
delivery touches the heart and soul of everyone. Starting from humble
beginnings growing up in the small town of Smithdale, MS picking 100 pounds
of cotton each day and farming with his family during Mississippi’s
segregation, his career started as lead singer and guitarist for The Williams
Brothers founded in 1960 by his father Leon “Pop” Williams.
In 1988, Melvin started his solo music career with the release of Back
to the Cross, that was released by Compendia Music Group, charted at No.
6 on the Billboard Gospel Albums Chart and garnered his first GRAMMY nomination
as Best Soul Gospel Performance. Today, his eighth album, Where I Started
From, released in 2017 - charted at No. 9 on the Nielsen Christian Charts
and No. 18 on the Top 20 Billboard Gospel Albums Charts - on his vanity
label, Melvin Williams Entertainment in partnership with New Day Christian
Distributors and Sony Orchard. All of his albums throughout his career,
charted on the Billboard Gospel Albums chart. Today, his hit song “Cooling
Water” viral video is over 14 million YouTube views and “Another
Blessing” at over 7 million views.
As a legendary Gospel icon, he continues his mission to “Preserve
Traditional Gospel Music” (PTGM) with his syndicated radio show,
“Down Home Gospel with Melvin Williams” that airs on more
than 52 radio stations across the nation. Melvin had the honor to record
the last interview with gospel great, Clarence Fountain of the Blind Boys
of Alabama before his untimely passing as they planned to record a duet
together in support of the PTGM project. As Melvin states, “Traditional
Gospel Music is the roots, the rock, the foundation of our Heritage, America’s
Heritage” and he captures the essence of this mission with his newly
released LIVE Recorded Acoustic CD project titled “Down Home Gospel.”
Melvin’s rendition of Mahalia Jackson’s “How I Got Over”
solidifies his raw, God-given talent as he accompanies his vocals on his
acoustic guitar. The CD also features Melvin’s version of the classic
“Go Down Moses,” which was described as “a Santana-esque
Spanish guitar and Mavis Staples performance all rolled into one”
by Don Allan Mitchell, Chair of Language & Literature at Delta State
University, at two recent GRAMMY Museum concerts in Los Angeles and Mississippi.
Melvin Williams plays the guitar in vassapoo, that is., playing a right-handed
guitar upside down and backwards with his left hand thereby the strings
are upside-down chords also known as “Open E.” He is part
of an extraordinary group of musicians and artists, for example., Kenny
"Babyface" Edmonds, Al McKay (formerly of Earth Wind & Fire),
Jonathan Butler, Billy Ray Cyrus, Cesar Rosas (formerly of Los Lobas),
Dick Dale (the King of Surfer Music), Kurt Cobain, Bobby Womack, Seal,
Jimi Hendrix, Justin Bieber, and Albert King, Sr, to name a few.
As US Music Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs and Jazz At Lincoln Center's "The Rhythm Road:
American Music Abroad,” Melvin Williams tours internationally hosting
Master Class at American Corners and performing concerts at various Performing
Arts Theatres, Festivals, Music Conservatories, such as, the Usadba Jazz
Festival in Moscow, Russia; the Baku Jazz Center in Baku, Azerbaijan;
the Turkmenistan Cinema and Concert Hall in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan; the
International Jazz Festival in Chelyabinsk, Club 33 Amphitheatre in Tbilisi
Vake Park in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1950's, the US State Department Ambassadors
program began with American Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy
Gillespie, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington to foster a mutual understanding
between the U.S. and other nations through American music and culture.
And in 2009, the Ambassador program expanded to all other genres of music
to include Gospel music.
Melvin Williams' extension of his Ambassadorship continues today through
his "Preserve Traditional Gospel Music: Down Home Gospel" tour
that is currently touring the U.S. and a planned tour of Europe, Australia,
Japan, Canada, and South America. The tour includes colleges and universities
performing, and hosting workshops on The History of Gospel Music and its
influence in today’s music honoring those great Gospel singers that
have come before him like Mahalia Jackson, The Dixie Hummingbirds, James
Cleveland and most recently Clarence Fountain. On occasion, Melvin tours
with the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin singing duet with Ms. Franklin
on the legendary song “Precious Memories.” Throughout his
career, Melvin Williams shared the stage with other musical greats as
Stevie Wonder, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Shirley Caesar, Mavis Staples,
James Taylor, Paul Overstreet, BeBe and CeCe Winans, Kirk Franklin, Fred
Hammond, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Mississippi Mass Choir, Patti Labelle,
Chaka Khan, Luther Vandross, Walter & Edwin Hawkins, Amy Grant, Al
Green, Aaron Neville, Steve Winwood, Ray Charles and many more.
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