THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rusty Williams, at 78 years old, just released Grand Man with the help of his granddaughter and her bandmates — but his musical journey has been a long time coming. Rusty was a lifelong lover of music, having written songs and joined a band in his earlier years. In fact, his talents even made an appearance on Hayley’s Petals for Armor album in 2020, providing vocals and piano on the closing track Crystal Clear.
Many people thought that was likely as far as Rusty’s musical story was going to go. Despite claims that he’d recorded an album back in the ’70s, few were certain the album even existed until “the senior Williams’ old production partner” Frank Morris rediscovered the record.
Rusty’s songs hadn’t ventured much further than the Mississippi recording studio where the tracks were laid down all those years ago. However, Paramore’s Zac Farro put his hand up to ensure that they live on, plotting to release the record by way of his Nashville label Congrats Records. “I thought that it was a crime that these songs were sitting there on the shelf,” he says.
Adds Hayley: “So many people our age are mining these albums for tones and things you can’t even replicate. And Grandad has a way of cutting to the core of a feeling, and not overcomplicating it. Which we tend to do, because the world is hard. It’s nice when you can hear something plain and simple and know that it is true.”
However, despite the long-overdue release of Grand Man, Rusty isn’t hoping for a major career renaissance to come his way. “I don’t expect anything, and I’m too old to be famous,” he explained. “But I just want to know someone liked what I did, and to be touched by whatever the hell they are listening to. I want people to see how it felt when things were real. You write stuff, and you want somebody to get something out of it. I just had to wait for a granddaughter and a band with her to really do anything with mine.”
