{"id":33813,"date":"2014-10-13T09:49:41","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T13:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=33813"},"modified":"2019-08-28T13:14:19","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T17:14:19","slug":"bluegrass-bloomer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/10\/13\/bluegrass-bloomer\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluegrass bloomer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wright<\/a>

Wright State electrical engineering student and bluegrass musician Trent Williams released his first solo album, a labor of love tilted \u201cSomeday.\u201d (Photo by Jenny Buckler)<\/p><\/div>\n

When he arrived at Wright State University as an incoming engineering student, among the items in Trent Williams\u2019 pickup truck were his guitar, banjo and mandolin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put them under my bed in my dorm room,\u201d Williams recalled. \u201cEveryone thought I was the weirdest guy in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Williams\u2019 passion for music has paid off. The bluegrass musician has just released his first solo album \u2013 a labor of love titled \u201cSomeday.\u201d<\/p>\n

This comes at a time when Williams is poised to graduate with his bachelor\u2019s degree in electrical engineering<\/a>. The two disciplines are an unusual mix, raising more than a few eyebrows among his fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they ask you what your degree is, that\u2019s priceless \u2013 the look on their faces whenever you say electrical engineering,\u201d he said. \u201cI have fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 gets his love for engineering honestly. His father is an engineer for the Ohio Valley Electric Corp.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve wanted to be my dad my whole life,\u201d said Williams. \u201cI remember going to work with dad when I was in a car seat. That was back when he still climbed transmission towers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams grew up on a farm outside the southern Ohio village of Piketon, best known for its uranium enrichment plant. He was into horses and never missed a county fair until last summer (because of musical obligations).<\/p>\n

When Williams was 7, his father \u2013 who has played southern Gospel music since he was a teen \u2013 took him and his older brother to a little music store and bought them mandolins.<\/p>\n

Trent\u2019s brother, who at the time was attending Wittenberg University, would take lessons all week and come home and show Trent what he had learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen minutes later I could play it,\u201d said Williams, who has never had a lesson. \u201cIt really made him mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams grew up listening to old-time bluegrass, gospel and a lot of Merle Haggard. But he was also influence by the classic country of Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson.<\/p>\n

\"Trent<\/a>

Trent Williams began recording \u201cSomeday\u201d in a Cincinnati studio last November and hopes to one day perform at the Grand Ole Opry. (Photo by Jenny Buckler)<\/p><\/div>\n

Among the instruments Williams plays is the dobro, a resonator guitar whose sound is produced by metal cones instead of a wooden sound board like its acoustic counterparts.<\/p>\n

Williams attended Piketon High School and took college courses full time at nearby Shawnee State University his junior and senior years. He graduated at the top of his high school class with a 3.89 GPA and arrived at Wright State in 2011 with 52 semester hours already under his belt and nearly junior status.<\/p>\n

Williams had toyed with the idea of becoming an aerospace engineer and working for NASA and then thought about going into the nuclear field. He finally settled on electrical engineering because he knew the industry and it would give him many career options.<\/p>\n

He came to Wright State because of its strong engineering program and because he liked the feel of the campus and the comforting presence of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best choice I ever could have made. The engineering department<\/a> is great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last November, Williams began recording his album \u201cSomeday\u201d in a Cincinnati studio. It was released Aug. 1. The soulful, banjo-rich, lyrically smooth album features songs with intriguing titles such as \u201cOnly Goodbye,\u201d \u201cAnother Bridge to Burn,\u201d \u201cWicked Path of Sin\u201d and \u201cPerfectly Heartbroke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge feat,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThis album has absolutely changed my life. The music has consumed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lyrics of the album\u2019s title track seem to be a reflection of Williams\u2019 life.<\/p>\n

When I was a young man writing my songs
\nSaid down in Nashville is where you belong
\nI said someday, yeah maybe someday
\nI knocked down the doors and I wore out my shoes
\nSpent all my money paying my dues
\nSomeday, maybe someday
\n<\/em>
\nThe album is available on iTunes and Google Play and at one point was the second most downloaded bluegrass album on AirPlay Direct<\/a>. In addition, more than 300 hard copies have been sold. Williams himself has shipped CDs to customers in Australia, the Netherlands and even to a country he had never heard of.<\/p>\n

He spent much of this past summer playing in Smoky Mountain Tunes and Tales, a series of musical and artistic street performances in Gatlinburg, Tenn. His lifetime goal is to play at the Grand Ole Opry.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Williams is preparing to graduate in December. He has engineering job offers in Ohio and Tennessee, but is hoping that his music career will catch fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love for music to just go crazy right now,\u201d he said. \u201cSomehow the album decides to explode, and I can play music for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wright State electrical engineering student and bluegrass musician Trent Williams released his first solo album, a labor of love tilted \u201cSomeday.\u201d Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":33822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2037,4268,743,715,4298,2061],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-arts-scene","category-electrical-engineering","category-engineering-computer-science","category-news","category-student-profile","category-undergraduate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33813"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73086,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33813\/revisions\/73086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}