Dana Williams (singer)

Early life

Dana Williams was born in Los Angeles to musician and songwriter David Williams, famed for his work with Michael Jackson for over 30 years. Her elder sister, Davida Williams, is an actress. As a child, Williams split her time between Los Angeles, the home of her father, and New York City, the home of her mother. As a child, she also lived for a short time in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts on Martha's Vineyard during which time she attended Tisbury School. During her childhood, she often accompanied her father to the recording studio and eventually got to meet Michael Jackson because of her father's position as the singer's guitarist. After the studio sessions, Williams would often go home and practice writing love songs due to her father's influence. For a middle school Black History Month project, Williams discovered and learned about legendary Jazz musician Ella Fitzgerald. This project opened Williams up to Jazz music, along with the influence of her maternal grandmother, who was a Jazz singer and often sang songs to Williams and her sister as infants. When she was in fourth grade, Williams was selected to sing "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)" with Jay-Z for a Television special. As Williams got older and grew up in New York, she became exposed to the works of Billie Holiday and started to attend and perform at Jazz Clubs throughout the city, particularly Lenox Lounge, which was frequented by Holiday throughout her career. She began writing her own music when she was 14 or 15.

Williams attended Middle School, High School, and College in New York, studying music at both the Masters School and Sarah Lawrence College, during which time she mastered the guitar and became trained in both classical and contemporary styles of music. At Sarah Lawrence, her primary focus of study was poetry and creative writing. She majored in writing for the majority of her time at Sarah Lawrence, but realized that writing books and poetry would not be enough to make a successful career. She started to write and perform songs more often and eventually picked up a double major in music and poetry during her sophomore year. During college, Williams became an award-winning, published poet, an accomplishment she says influences the poetic and emotional nature of her song lyrics. She cites Louise Glück and Dennis Nurkse as two of her favorite poets, the latter of whom was one of her professors while she was studying at Sarah Lawrence.

Career

Williams served as the opening act for Leighton Meester and Check in the Dark's spring tour in 2012. She was also featured on Freddie Gibbs's 2012 mixtape, Baby Face Killa, for the song "The Hard." She began posting cover songs to YouTube in 2013, and is now most well known for her 2014 collaboration with Meester on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams", which has garnered more than 5,000,000 views as of December 2016. In 2013, Williams released her debut single, "Keep Me Waiting," ahead of the release of her debut EP, The Lonely One, on March 24, 2014. The song was featured on the soundtrack for Damien Chazelle's 2014 critically acclaimed, Academy Award-winning film Whiplash and featured in his 2016 critically acclaimed film La La Land.

In the summer of 2014, Williams came into national prominence when she participated in the singing competition series Rising Star, where she progressed into the finale and finished in fourth place.

Later the same year, she was featured in a Christmas commercial for Apple, entitled "The Song," in which she was shown discovering an old recording of her grandmother singing Nat King Cole's "Our Love is Here to Stay" for her husband before he left for the Korean War. The commercial follows Williams as she records her own version of the song, creates a duet with her grandmother's original version, and then surprises her grandmother with the new recording, causing her to tear up. The commercial was met with widespread acclaim from viewers. Williams collaborated with Freddie Gibbs on two more songs in 2015, being the featured vocalist on the track "Diamonds" on his EP entitled Pronto, and on the track "McDuck" for his second album, Shadow of a Doubt. On April 14, 2015, Williams released a collaboration with Toronto producer Swim Good, providing vocals for the song "Callaway." Williams's most recent project, a sophomore EP entitled Let's Fall was released on December 11, 2015, following the release of the lead single, "Fooling Myself." The EP's second single, "Come Back," was released on January 16, 2016. Williams released a music video for the album track "Damage" on April 14, 2016.

Williams is currently represented by her publishing company, Smiggs Songs, and signed an administration deal with the Royalty Network, Inc. on December 11, 2015.

On July 8, 2016, Williams performed a small show at the Base in Alex's Place at the YMCA on Martha's Vineyard. In September 2016, Williams was featured on Boogie's single "Sunroof," from his mixtape Thirst 48 Pt. 2, which was released October 14, 2016. She also provided uncredited vocals on the album track "Nigga Needs." In late 2016, Williams played several live shows at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles, completing a residency on October 27th and then opening for the band Lawrence on November 9. She played a live show at UCB Theater in Los Angeles on November 12.

On March 3, 2017, "Lifeline" was released, a collaborative single between electronic artist Melvv and Williams, who provides featured vocals on the track. Williams is currently working on material for a full-length LP.

Personal life

Williams is long-time friends with actress and singer Leighton Meester. The two attended the same middle school. They have performed several cover duets together for Williams's YouTube channel, including "Dreams," "Dream of You," "You and Your Sister," and "Blue Christmas. These cover videos have drawn thousands, and even millions, of viewers.

Williams describes her music as "ethereal soul folk," and is heavily inspired by Fitzgerald, Holiday, Carole King, Norah Jones, Nina Simone, and Sam Cooke. Her greatest thematic inspirations come from events and interactions that happen in her daily life. She has a relaxed approach to songwriting, explaining that "forcing it usually strangles my creative process." Williams finds comfort and release in writing and singing songs about loss, especially surrounding the death of her father.

Williams currently lives and frequently performs in Los Angeles. Williams moved to Los Angeles with her immediate family in 2012 after graduating from school. Williams likes animals and considered being a veterinarian or marine biologist as a child. She often spends a lot of time outdoors with her dogs, trying to find new areas of the city to explore.