With a voice like a choirboy and a beard like a lumberjack, acoustic-oriented multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter William Fitzsimmons is a striking visual and aural presence.
His music, over the course of seven LPs and EPs since 2005, has brought him comparisons to Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam (and I’d add Beth Orton due to the way he links Folk with spacy, ethereal Electronica and orchestral touches).
His latest release, this year’s melodic seven-song Pittsburgh, has a hushed, Zen-like peacefulness that is calming and centering. The writing and singing are open, vulnerable and confident in the way they share intimate thoughts about family, love and loneliness.
A native of Pittsburgh, Fitzsimmons left the city as his career blossomed but returned in 2014 when his grandmother died. Her passing prompted him to write Pittsburgh’s songs in tribute to both her and his hometown.
On “Ghosts of Penn Hills” (a Pittsburgh neighborhood), he remembers his grandmother with a tenderness that is melancholy but never maudlin: “Had a dream that I was just a boy again and my father was young and still full of time/Now my grandmother’s body is in the earth but I see her every night/I will love you till the ghosts of these Penn Hills will bring me where you are”
Fitzsimmons’ parents were blind and loved music, playing it around the house and inspiring his decision to learn how to play and write songs. About his parents’ influence, he told Phoenix New Times earlier this year, “(Music) was something we could share. It was a purely good thing. I don’t know if I would ever pick up a guitar if it weren’t for my folks.”
Fitzsimmons put music on the backburner when he went to college. He chose to study mental-health therapy and, upon graduation, worked as a therapist before deciding to pursue a career in music instead. He has since become a quietly authoritative troubadour, one that fans have come to love because instead of hiding in his music, he uses it to reveal himself.
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This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2015.