Triple threat Alison Williams is at home in Winston-Salem, NY and around the world – Winston-Salem Journal

“I want to use my voice to help other people,” she says. “I want to have a high vibration. I want it to be a positive feeling when people see me. That’s what it’s all about.”

Born and raised in a musical family in Harlem, New York, Williams met Maya Angelou through mutual friends. The two spent some time together in New York, and Williams began visiting Angelou in Winston-Salem around 2008. Angelou calls Williams “Songbird.”

After Angelou’s death in 2014, her longtime assistant Lydia Stuckey kept up the tradition of large Thanksgiving celebrations with friends and family. At one of these parties in 2019. Williams met with Rex Welton, executive director of OUT at the Movies.

Welton came to Winston-Salem in 1982 to attend Wake Forest and never left. His organization screens LGTBQIA films year-round, holds a four-day International Film Festival each year, and hosts a Key West-themed fundraiser extravaganza in June.

“I knew right away that Alison was smart and dynamic, so I asked her in advance to join OUT on the Movies board of directors, and she did, in January 2021,” says Welton.

Williams played two of the fundraisers in Key West, co-headlining with Clint “CC Labrie” Cedillo.

“You’d never know they only see each other once a year,” says Welton. “Once they get together, the chemistry is magical. They’re like Regis and Kathie Lee.

“She is truly a remarkable person. She is a degree apart from anyone in the world and is one of my best friends.

Williams moved here permanently in 2020. in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People ask me if I miss New York, but Dr. Angelou introduced me to that part of the world in a way no one else could,” Williams says. “Every time I came here, something good happened. Winston-Salem is a beautiful, peaceful place for me to live and have a better quality of life.”

Williams’ father was a trumpeter and big band leader. Her mother was involved in acting and modeling. Williams says she came home from the hospital wrapped in music and was always surrounded by music.

“I didn’t find any music. Music found me,” she says. “When you have a calling, you don’t choose it; it chooses you.”

She performed for years with the Dance Theater of Harlem and thought dance would be her path. But she also loved to act and sing.

“It’s what they call a ‘triple threat,’ and that’s the path I took,” she says. “When my parents saw that I wanted to be a performer, they were very, very supportive.”

Around the time she graduated from high school and college, Williams met Curtis Blow, a rap artist who introduced her to Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Recordings. Simmons wants an R&B division for the label.

“He wanted a representation of what he grew up with,” Williams says. “You’d go to parties on Saturday nights and you’d see the greats – Gladys Knight, the Delphonics – and he wanted it to be part of Def Jam, so Oran ‘Juice’ Jones, Chuck Stanley and I were the R&B division. This launched my career as a solo artist in 1988.

Since creating a string of hits in the 1980s and 1990s, including “Just Call My Name” and “My Love Is So Raw,” Williams has moved comfortably into the wider world of music and show business, including performances on Broadway and stint with Columbia Records.

“I love a lot of different genres, but jazz is in my heart,” Williams says. “This was the music my mother and father played and I heard it in the womb.”

In 2020 and 2021, shortly after moving to Winston-Salem, Williams starred in a video that won a 2022 Emmy Award for Excellence in Content and Arrangement. Produced by Grammy-winning Skip Martin, songwriter, producer and author, and David L. Cook, the video performance of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” is a worldwide collaboration of virtuoso artists.

Williams, Taylor Dane, Pastor John P. Key, Stevie Wonder and about 21 other stars made remote recordings, and the resulting “Legends Unite for St. Jude’s” was used as an advertisement for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Jude. Imagine We Are the Kids made during COVID and you get the picture.

“There was a need for the people of the world to be uplifted,” says Williams. “There was so much uncertainty at the time. Skip brought us all together—leads, backgrounds, and musical accompaniment—and we each did it in our own homes, in our own backyards. Everything was done out of love and the desire to spread joy, and we were honored for our efforts.”

Williams says she has performed every year at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, but this year, from July 31 to August 3, Williams performed as Phyllis Hyman in “Betcha By Golly Wow, there’s Never Too Much,” a production at the Ebony Repertory Theater of Los Angeles at the newly named International Black Theater Festival.

Hyman was a talented but troubled pop star in the 1980s. She struggled with bipolar and substance abuse disorders, and many fans felt the music industry mistreated her.

“Phyllis was a dear friend,” says Williams. “And I want to keep her musical legacy alive and give people a safe haven. I’m using the platform of her story to talk about mental health.

“I’m home now, my first day out of New York, and I’m going to do the normal stuff like laundry,” Williams says. She had just participated in a fundraiser in Harlem for The Pillars, a non-profit recovery/sobriety group.

She has type 2 diabetes and practices and promotes a healthy lifestyle despite her busy schedule. She calls herself a ‘Divabetic’ saying: ‘I fit diabetes into my life. I don’t fit in with diabetes.

Her current schedule includes a performance cruise, national play tours and Broadway shows. She hosts a radio show – “In the Chill Zone” – on WHCR 93 FM, The Voice of Harlem.

“I want to show people that you can have diabetes and do great things,” Williams says. “I’m trying to do more TV and movies. I’m glad I’m in good health and able to do the job because now I have to jump in the water and swim.

Her work requires a lot of energy, but it also recharges it.

“There’s something about music that’s a pacifier for the soul,” Williams says. “And that’s what I love about what I do. I can touch people in a way that not everyone can.”

“I can do what I love, what I’m gifted for. This vocation suits me. And I don’t have to be ready until 5pm.” William laughs and says, “I’m Forrest Gump in what I do.

“I’ve had some wonderful opportunities and done some great things, but I’m still on the road to where I want to go. … I stand on the shoulders of greatness and I sit at the feet of greatness — Chaka Khan, Valerie Simpson, so many amazing artists.”

And he is looking forward to participating in the musical life of his new hometown.

“Winston-Salem has a lot of venues and a lot of supporters of the theater and the arts,” Williams says. “I want to work with the universities and I want to be part of my community. “