Jeff Schwaner, Staunton News Leader
Published 7:55 PM EDT Aug. 8, 2021 Updated 8:38 PM EDT Aug. 8, 2021

"There's no better thing." Robin and Linda Williams see their music as a personal exchange, "like a conversation," between them and their audience.
JEFF SCHWANER/THE NEWS LEADER

Not many people know about Oakenwold Studios. Across the street from the Staunton Public Library's sensory garden, where lavender and mint are grown to be crushed between fingers or underfoot, unearthing fragrances like memories, there sits an unassuming house.

If you rest on a bench at the garden in the afternoon, along the sightline of coneflowers bending to the summer breeze, along with the wind-chimes and the trickle of water falling from the stone fountain at the garden, you may even hear a little music.

Like the plants in the garden, the music grows from the roots of the valley. It comes from the guitar of Robin Williams and the banjo of Linda Williams as they sit on their side porch and practice songs for their upcoming fall concert dates. The partnership of their voices has been shaped and honed over the decades to allow for differences of tone, texture -- and even opinion. "Most of the time in the course of our career of making 24 albums, I have been the only woman in the room," said Linda Williams during a late July interview. Although she was still the only woman in the room as the couple recorded their new album, "A Better Day A- Coming," she felt more comfortable to voice her opinions and not just her melody.
After all, the room was in her house.

The title song (and first song released from the album) was the #2 song on the roots music charts for June. With the official album release on July 30, fans have been getting a sense of how deeply rooted in Virginia their songs can be. One of the songs, "Jake and Jesus," was about Augusta County neighbors they knew for decades. Their most recent local appearances included a Heifetz Hootenanny gig in June .

The duo, who gained national acclaim for their regular appearances singing on "A Prairie Home Companion," also played themselves in the 2006 Robert Altman film about the long- running radio show.

For all their playing for the movie camera, they went into the new album without the time- proven sense of which new songs had already been embraced by concert-goers. They are used to trying out new songs in front of audiences.

This time, said Robin Williams, "the songs weren't stage-tested."

"Jake and Jesus" was one of those songs. It took thirty years to write the song about their long-time neighbors Jake and Lila, but "we never sang it on stage before we recorded it," he said. "You have to have confidence to record like that."

Other songs including "Old Lovers Waltz" came from more recent experiences and were still being written as recording started.

The confidence also came from decades of being at home with each other, even if home meant the road, where they developed a musical voice that's the heart of the new album.

The road's instilled a kind of fearlessness in their playing which manifests in their relaxed on-stage banter. You can't be afraid of failure, Linda said, "because, oh, you're going to fail." It's a matter of finishing the song, playing the next song, and the next show, and going on together.

How they met: 'you learn how to follow, you learn how to lead'

Linda's parents were from Alabama and Georgia. After several moves, they settled in South Carolina and a young Linda went to visit them for the first time in their new home state. Of course, there was music playing somewhere, and Linda, who'd been singing in front of people since she was a child, made her way to find it.

It happened to be near where Robin's musician family, including his brothers, were living, in Myrtle Beach.
"There was a little open jam, open mic thing at this bar in town and I heard about it and went down there. And this guy (Robin) was playing, and then I got asked to play. Then we met." The road could easily have broken that initial connection. Robin was already traveling in a national coffee house circuit. Months later he called back to his dad's home in Myrtle Beach and his brother answered. "Linda's here," he said. "You want to talk to her?"

He did. From then on they were pretty much inseparable.

Local musical roots were '' real deal'

The two immersed themselves in the musical roots of all the places they lived, from Tennessee to Virginia.
"We went to the Galax old-time fiddlers' convention for the first time," Linda recalled. "I'd never been to anything like that.

"I mean, Kingston Trio folk music is one thing, you know. Galax__"
"Galax is the real deal," Robin finished with her.
"That's where the music started, down in our area. And to be down there and meet these people and play down there and jam with them, we just got immersed in that music. And it's a deep, deep well, which we are still very immersed in," said Linda.

Making new songs and old songs their own.

The album includes several cover songs, including a surprisingly upbeat version of Leonard Cohen's classic "Tower of Song."

"Our job as artists is to make it a Robin and Linda Williams song," said Robin.
Their version has the same high-energy dark humor as their original "Living Your Bad Name Down," with its undertones of Hank William's storytelling humor and Warren Zevon's self-deprecating shade.
In the case of "Old Lovers Waltz," the storytelling and humor were more personal. Linda, who'd been battling some health issues in 2019, wasn't exactly feeling like dancing. But with upcoming shows in Texas just a few months away, she thought to herself, "I have to get in gear. I have to get back. I have to start right now."

After listening to a waltz titled "The Lover's Waltz" composed by friends and fellow musicians Jay Unger and Molly Mason, Linda told Robin, "There oughta be an 'Old Lover's Waltz.'" The song started as a title and an urge to get back into performing shape. From the title came "enough of a start, musically or lyrically, to get him interested in it," Linda said, nodding towards Robin. Robin added "too many chords," she joked, and the song evolved from there.

One surprise was that Robin took the lead vocal role for the first verse, with Linda providing the harmonies. And, fitting for the song, they switched for the second verse. With the old lovers waltz, as her own lyrics note, you learn how to follow, you learn how to lead.

JEFF SCHWANER, STAUNTON NEWS LEADER
"What's hard is to keep the focus on the music," said Robin Williams about recording an album at home, independent of a record company. He spoke on his porch in late July, 2021.JEFF SCHWANER/THE NEWS LEADER

A poster from a Prairie Home Companion show featuring Robin and Linda Williams from 2012 hangs in the duo's room where they recorded their 24th album.

JEFF SCHWANER/THE NEWS LEADER