LOS ANGELES (AP) – Singer-songwriter Holly Williams, granddaughter of country legend Hank Williams, is proud of her roots but wants to be known for her music.
“When I first played in Nashville, I never told people who I was because I wanted to know if they liked me for my music first,” Williams, daughter of Hank Williams Jr., told the Los Angeles Times. “Even at my shows now not many people know who I am unless I tell them – which I don’t – or unless they’ve read up on (my) Web site.”
But Williams, 23, isn’t afraid of invoking her famous family in her music. Her debut album, “The Ones We Never Knew,” includes a track in which she wishes she were “an angel in ‘52, in a blue Cadillac on the eve of the New Year,” a reference to her grandfather’s death at age 29.
“I don’t really contemplate his death,” she says. “It’s so hard to feel like he’s my grandfather because there’s not that many people (still alive) who knew him. … It’s so far away from me.”
Williams says she didn’t listen to much music in her early teens, but she later picked up a guitar and couldn’t put it down.
“Something changed when I was 17,” she says. “I remember saying ‘Who’s Bob Dylan? Who’s Joni Mitchell?’ … I kind of became immersed.”
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