Album Notes

"This is a beautiful, heart-felt and inspiring CD. We recommend it." Barry and Joyce Vissell, authors of The Shared Heart, Models of Love and Meant to Be. "Hands hearts and Voices is a CD that is filled with universal love songs, gritty rhythm and blues, belt-it-out gospel and earthy folk-rock and yet all these songs have a message that is much needed in the world right now. I love the variety of styles and singers. The songs flow together with grace and ease. Hands hearts and Voices is a fabulous CD. I highly recommend it!" ~ Karen Drucker, inspirational singer/songwriter "Hands Hearts and Voices" is a culmination of the spiritual and physical journey of guitarist/singer/songwriter/producer Ralph Williams over the last 5 years. Over that time Williams collaborated musically with singer/songwriter's Robert Smith, Lisa Hollwedel, Richard Burdick, Kristi Matal and Sharon Joy Jahoda. These musical collaborations resulted in some remarkable songs and song arrangements about the pursuit of dreams (Stepping Out, Stepping Stones), spirituality (God's Love, The Spirit of God is Upon Me, Body of the Goddess), caring for our world (Good Planets are Hard to Find), Loving Kindness (Love One Another, Rise Above), and personal growth (I Can't Fix You). The musical styles on this CD range from contemporary folk to rhythm and blues to gospel to Latin rock. Williams was quoted as saying, "I wanted to make something very lively and exciting that people could listen to and dance to. I also wanted to make something that transitions people smoothly from one theme and musical style to another like waves on the ocean." As a band leader and music director, Williams is quite comfortable sharing the stage. As a former roots/folk DJ at KVMR in Nevada City, California, Williams is also comfortable with exploring different musical genres. He knows what his strengths and weaknesses are and isn't afraid to enlist other talented people in his recording projects. Involving various guest vocalists has resulted in a recording that has tremendous musical and topical variety. Williams knew that a great mixing engineer would be essential to producing a great recording. He chose Mikail Graham who works quite extensively with contemporary folk singers Paul Kamm and Eleanore MacDonald to help him blend the tracks into a cohesive recording. The result is a recording with tremendous musical and topical variety from start to finish that lifts the listener gently from their current state of mind, to a new plateau filled with hope and possibility.