Vivian Tomlinson Williams

Vivian Tomlinson Williams (May 27, 1938 – January 6, 2023) was an American fiddler, composer, recording artist, and writer.

She graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, with a B.A in American history in 1959.

Williams attended graduate school and received an M.A. in anthropology from the University of Washington.

She started to work on a PhD but "lost interest in the whole academic thing".

At the age of 22 Williams began playing the fiddle in "self-defense against the banjo".

One of the first fiddle tunes Williams played is “Old Molly Hare”, which she got from a Mike Seeger album.

When Bill Monroe played Washington State in the early 1960s, he hired Williams to play fiddle for two shows.

Monroe said, “I have never heard a lady fiddler that could beat Williams, and a lot of men fiddlers can’t beat her". Williams has disclosed that she relied on her friend and local musician Paul Wiley (originally from Kentucky) to help her learn several Monroe tunes before he arrived in Seattle.  Murphy Hicks Henry writes that Vivian Williams has a "well-deserved reputation as one of the top fiddlers in the Northwest".

In the mid-1960s Vivian Williams was a founding member of the bluegrass band 'Tall Timber Boys'.

She thought it was okay to use the word "Boys" because Bill Monroe had used it in his band and he had a female bass player once.

Later on, they changed the name to the 'Tall Timber Gang'.

Williams also formed the all-female trio, White Pine Girls, just for fun in the mid-1960s with Barbara Hug on banjo and Carol Crist on guitar.

Vivian Williams began playing bluegrass music, but then drew from Scandinavian, Celtic, and old time musical influences including a unique Northwest style of fiddling.

Williams was significantly influenced by musicians in the Darrington logging and milling community northeast of Seattle.

Several musicians with Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee roots along with a few northern European immigrants gathered to play music frequently.

Williams describes Darrington, Washington as "an end-of-the-road kind of place back then", and they "played with a heartfeltness the two of them hadn’t found anywhere else".

She fondly recalls a singer and guitarist, Gladys Lewis, who performed during informal stage shows.

The typical jam session would place the women in the kitchen cooking/gossiping while the men played music in the living room.

According to Williams, "The women musicians rarely played or sang in public I was apparently accepted because a) I was married and therefore not a threat, b) they needed a fiddle player, and c) I was a weird hippy city girl so normal expectations didn't apply". There were outdoor picnics with the Tar Heel (North Carolina) folks where people would have a family table but share food with other tables. There would be a loosely arranged stage show, jam sessions and socializing. There was no dancing except when someone had too much to drink and they did a "hillbilly jig" on a picnic table. Williams says drinking was typically minimal because these were family oriented events.  Missouri folk’s picnics were similar except they were held in a more remote location near Lynden, Washington with fewer outsiders attending.

In 1962, Vivian and Phil Williams formed a string band named 'The Turkey Pluckers' to play at square dances, coffee houses, and on television.

KAYO, a local country radio station, were broadcasting a milking contest from the top of the newly built Seattle Space Needle and hired the Williams' band to play background music.

When a local square dance caller, Kappie Kappenman, heard this on the radio he rushed to the Space Needle with his group of eight young square dancers all decked out in western wear.

They got off the elevator at the top of the Space Needle and immediately began calling and dancing to the tune the Williams' were playing.

This event led to quite a bit of publicity for square dancing, which had been dwindling.

Along with her husband Phil Williams, they created the Voyager Recording label in 1967.

After extensive travel through Washington, Idaho and Montana, recording numerous old time fiddlers, she and Phil wanted to put their research into recordings.

They could not find an established record producer to complete their project, so they started their own label.

Williams describes Voyager "as a hobby that got out of hand".

On the Voyager label they released recordings of traditional and historical fiddle and mandolin music.

Some of the Williams recordings of Byron Berline and Texas Shorty from Missoula, Montana, and Weiser, Idaho, sessions were eventually put together into a compilation for the first Voyager record entitled Fiddle Jam Sessions.

A Bluegrass Unlimited review after this release called it "top-caliber".

Along with her husband Phil, Williams co-produced over fifty albums on the Voyager label.

They also published instructional textbooks and workshop manuals such as “Brand New Old Time Fiddle Tunes". The William’s released Comin’ Round the Mountain in 1969 on their Voyager label with songs from the Darrington folks with whom they were friends.

Vivian Williams served on the board of directors of the Northwest Folklife Festival for several years.

She won national fiddling titles, including the National Oldtime Fiddlers Contest, and in 2013 she was inducted into the North American Old Time Fiddlers Hall of Fame.

Williams' early years were influenced by her father’s fiddle and harmonica playing and her mother’s love of gypsy violin.

She began taking piano lessons at the age of six and classical violin lessons at the age of nine.

While in college Williams played mandolin, guitar and banjo.

This is where she met her future husband, Phil Williams.

A visit from Pete Seeger ignited the couple’s interest in folk music.