One morning at Dizzy’s Diner in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a man waited in a booth to meet with a friend who was working the first shift. Up to this point, this musician had been a solo act, but was now in desperate need for a catalyst. His life had taken a drastic turn, and his music demanded a drastic resurgence.
This musician, Zach Williams, was a native to Georgia and had taken to songwriting after his wife’s horseback riding near tragedy. Physicians initially said that Williams’ wife would, at best, leave the hospital a paraplegic; however, doctors from the Shepard Center in Atlanta had a more hopeful verdict. After a few months of extensive therapy, she regained the ability to walk.
“That was the first time I really experienced somebody trying their best to carry someone else’s burden. It was very moving to me. I was going to classes on how to bathe and feed my wife, and I was trying to process all the fear and anger and the numbness,” Williams said in an interview with Paradigm.
“I started reading my friends these journal entries. I was writing in a kind of rhyming form because it helped to keep my mind focused. Caleb said, ‘These are songs, man, you need to learn how to play the guitar and sing at the same time.'”
With a stack of emotion provoking songs rooted in the country, folk and gospel from his Southern youth, Williams relocated to Brooklyn with his wife and a close-knit group of friends in order to pursue his career. Among his group of friends were his friend from the diner, Brian Elmquist, as well as future band member, Kanene Pipkin. Together, they formed a trio named The Lone Bellow.
“The Lone Bellow’s recording and touring ensemble now includes Ben Mars on bass, Brian Murphy on keyboards, Matt Knapp on lap steel and electric guitar, Jason Pipkin on banjo and mandolin and Brian Griffin on drums,” wrote Michael Hill for the Paradigm interview.
“After a warm-up gig at Brooklyn’s Roots Café, Williams got a call from The Civil Wars, a Grammy Award-winning duo that he befriended while they were playing at the Lower East Side’s Rockwood Music Hall. They asked if he and his new cohorts would open for them in Philadelphia,” Hill wrote.
Producer Charlie Peacock was deeply moved by the haunting and passionate songs. The songs formed a complete story of trying hardship and reviving salvation. He decided to sign the band and captured the vulnerable sound of each individual and the confident spirit of the whole.
“We were 10 songs in, I was exhausted, my vocals were completely gone, it was, like, 1 a.m., and it started pouring down rain. Our piano player Brian ran outside and [lay] down on the sidewalk. So we all ran outside. Two of the band members started dancing in the rain and the rest of us started running around Allen Street with our shirts off. It was a beautiful moment,” Williams said.
“And while we were out there being dumb, Charlie set up the mics completely differently. When we came back inside, soaking wet from the rain, he said, we’re recording ‘Teach Me to Know’ right now. And we laid it down. And that was the way it was making this record. It was all about capturing moments. We didn’t play to a click; we were just in it. It was absolutely wonderful. I felt like the city just soaked through the windows into the recording.”
The Lone Bellow had been compared to The Lumineers, Mumford & Sons and The Cold War Kids. Their first and only album, released this year in January, has already placed 10th on “Top Independent Albums” and 64th on “The Billboard 200.” Although The Lone Bellow claim to play “Brooklyn country music,” I would rather describe them as a mix of slow-burning blues, gospel, folk and indie rock overseen by that acclaimed contemporary country melody.
