Jeanette Williams

Musician · Danville, Virginia · Also a recording artist
Best known for Lead Vocals Bass

Jeanette Williams is a bluegrass singer, songwriter and bass player from Danville, Virginia. She has won the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America’s Female Vocalist of the Year award three times. For most of her career she has performed with her husband, the guitarist and songwriter Johnny Williams.

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Her early albums included Dreams Come True (Flyin’ Cloud, 1995) and Johnny & Jeanette Williams (Major Bluegrass, 1996). Blue Ridge Mountain Sun (Mid-Knight, 1997) was credited to Jeanette Williams & Clearwater, with Johnny Williams on guitar. Cherry Blossoms in the Springtime (Doobie Shea, 1999), her fourth album, paired her with Dan Tyminski, Tim Austin, Craig Smith, Rob Ickes, Aubrey Haynie and Ben Isaacs and drew on songs by Dudley Connell and Randall Hylton. She then led the Jeanette Williams Band on Too Blue (2002) and Get in the Boat (2003) for Bell Buckle, and she made Thank You for Caring (Blue Circle, 2008).

She also sang with the Daughters of Bluegrass. On Back to the Well (2006) she sang lead on one track, and on Bluegrass Bouquet (2008) she sang lead on another and played bass. She has two IBMA awards from that work. She won the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest in 2007 and the IAMA songwriting contest in 2008, and she has written songs with Tom T. and Dixie Hall.

In 2011 she played bass and sang with Scott Freeman and Johnny Williams on the album Freeman & Williams (Mountain Roads). That year she also sang lead on “Little Bird of Heaven” for the label’s Close Kin: A Reunion of Bluegrass and Old-Time Music. In 2014 she previewed her single “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” produced by Bruce Dees for OffRow Records, at the SPBGMA convention, where she was nominated that year in the Contemporary category. She was one of the singers on “Steel Rails” for Louisa Branscomb’s Gonna Love Anyway (Compass, 2019).

In 2022 she formed Shelton & Williams with Johnny Williams and the guitarist Jay Shelton, a Danville group in which she plays bass and sings tenor. Their first album, So Much Time, So Much Love, came out that year. She and Johnny Williams have received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the city of Danville for their work in bluegrass.

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