But the 1987 Abilene High School graduate is also one of the foremost authorities and most-respected figures in his chosen line of work: a luthier living and working in Nashville, Tennessee. A luthier builds or repairs string instruments that include a neck and a sound box.
It’s not among the jobs most kids aspire to as they grow up, and Williams was no different. He did, however, have a talent for playing the bass, starting young and then playing in the orchestra at both Franklin Junior High School and Abilene High before going on to Abilene Christian University. He graduated with a double major in double bass and classical guitar, and a double minor in violin and cello. He also received a Master of Arts in Music Education, where he studied double bass performance.
He taught in the McAllen ISD while pursuing his master’s degree. He was the assistant orchestra director at McAllen Rowe High School and later the orchestra director at Lincoln Middle School. He was the Low String Specialist for the district and director of the McAllen Double Bass program.
But during his six years in McAllen, something told him he needed to do something different. And that “something” was to become a professional luthier. He and his wife, Nancy, and their daughter packed up their belongings and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he studied the craft under the direction of Peter Paul Prier, Charles Wolf, and Boris deGranda at the Violin Making School of America. While they were in Utah, their son was born.
With an intensive four-year program, the VMS of A is the alma mater of many of today’s finest violin makers and restorers working in top ateliers and high-end violin shops worldwide. After completing his work in Salt Lake City, Williams, and his family moved to Victoria, B.C., Canada, to study the concepts and ideas of double bass maker James Ham.
Finally, in 2004, he moved his family to Nashville and went to work building violins, opening Williams Fine Violins & Luthier Studios on Music Row.
Unfortunately, the violins weren’t selling quickly enough to make ends meet, so he decided to take on instrument repairs, a booming business in “Music City.” Soon he had more business than his small shop could handle, and he was swamped with requests for repairs and new builds.
Not long ago, Williams decided he needed more room and bought some land east of town and opened up a more extensive shop. It’s not only big enough for his display and sales areas out front but also features large workspaces in the back and a room that seats up to 45 people used for recitals, special shows, classes, or as an instrumental trial space.
No longer located on Music Row, the traffic still flows to his shop, where Williams plies his craft for many of the top musicians in Nashville. When asked who has been in his store, he likes to say, “It’s not who has been in, but who hasn’t.” But that’s not bragging; Williams rarely pays attention to which artist enters his shop. He’s more concerned with the instrument and meeting a customer’s needs.
Williams recently joined us from Nashville for a question-and-answer session to discuss his career, life in Abilene, and how he landed in Music City as one of the most sought-after people in his profession.
Q: Tell me about your experience in the Abilene ISD as you were growing up in Abilene and figuring out what you wanted to be when you grew up.
Williams: “I loved it (in Abilene), and it’s good to go back; I don’t have any family left in Abilene after my parents moved to Nashville a few years ago. When I was a kid, we moved to Abilene when I was four or five years old, and I went to Taylor Elementary School. My parents both worked at ACU, and my dad was a professor of sculpture in the Art Department. When I was in fourth grade, I found my mom had a baritone ukulele at our house and asked my mom what it was, and she told me, and I started taking lessons on it. Then when I went to guitar. And then, of course, everyone at Taylor had Mrs. Peggy Drennan for choir … the best music teacher on the planet, no doubt. I’ve been around many of them; she was undoubtedly the best. Her class was fun, and we had the Friday Talent Shows, which were a lot of fun, too. At the end of fourth grade, Mrs. Carolyn Rhodes came around our classes and told everyone to play in the orchestra. She played “Pop Goes the Whistle” and let the kids pluck the strings on the last two notes. She had a squeak on her high E string, and it shouldn’t happen. And it’s funny because I know how to fix that. After class, I asked her what didn’t make that high squeaky sound, and she said the bass, and I told her that’s what I wanted to play. I had some great music teachers and programs throughout Taylor, Franklin, and Abilene High, and I also enjoyed my other classes.”
Q: You were teaching in McAllen, Texas, before you got into making and repairing instruments. How did you reach that point where you gave up a career to pursue another one?
Williams: “I had a lot of fun teaching. I got a middle school program with 32 kids in it, and the first thing I did was kick four of them out. But in three years there, we ended up with more than 100 kids in the orchestra, and we were getting sweepstakes and all those fun things. I enjoyed teaching. I loved teaching, the kids, and the subject matter … but I wouldn’t say I liked the job. I never had discipline problems with the kids; it was the parents. Teaching is a great profession, but it wasn’t for me at that time. So I began to think about what I could do with my life. My dad is a sculptor – my middle name is Art – and I wondered how I could marry art and music, so I got on the internet and found a guy who makes violins. That married everything I wanted, and building violins piqued my interest. There were only three violin-making schools in the world at the time: one in Italy, one in Germany, and one in Utah. Crazy. So I talked to Nancy, and we decided to go to Utah. We sold our house, moved our daughter to Utah, and lived in abject poverty in a trailer home for four years. And during that time, our son was born while I was in school. But the school was great, and we saw a lot of nice instruments: Itzhak Perlman would come by; Yo-Yo Ma would come by with their Stradivarius violins and show us their stuff and play on our instruments.”
Q: What led you to Nashville and to open your store there?
Williams: “After Victoria, we thought, “Well, where do we move now?” I only knew one person, so I called him and asked him about it, and he said, “I don’t think there are many violin shops in town,” and it turns out there were only two. So we decided to move to Nashville. We intended to live quietly, work in my shop making instruments, and have Nancy teach. But sometimes, selling an instrument takes a long time, meaning long stretches without income. Finally, people started asking me to do repairs. Next thing you know, I had a house full of repairs before Nancy suggested we open a shop. So one year after we moved here, we opened up a shop and then another one, and now we’ve moved into the one we’re currently using. We’re constantly busy and have a great staff. The downside is that I have not had time to make instruments. We’re constantly repairing them.”
Q: What do you specialize in making?
Williams: “We make violins, violas, cellos, and basses. We don’t make guitars or mandolins. We repair those first four, rent them and sell them. Musicians in this town find amazing ways to damage their instruments. So we’ve had some interesting repairs. There are a lot of great players in Nashville, so it’s a matter of who hasn’t come in rather than who has come in. They’ve all been in here, and they’re nice people. But there’s no paparazzi here. For one week of the year when they have FanFest, it’s a little different, but every other week of the year, they’re your neighbor.”
Q: You enjoyed being an orchestra teacher before finally figuring out what you want to do. I’m assuming you’re the best at what you do in Nashville. Many people don’t have the opportunity to love what they do daily. What’s that like?
Williams: “There are many talented people in Nashville, so I hope I’m the best. But really, it’s somewhat shocking that I’m in this position. It’s honestly just perseverance. I didn’t know when to quit; I was too stupid to quit. We’ve just been having fun. We’ve had good churches to go to and good people around us. I could do something else, but I still enjoy it. That’s not to say it’s not challenging because it is, but it’s not impossible to do. It’s been a dream.”
- Note: Some of the biographical material was taken from Williams’ bio on his company website.
