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1. What did you do before forming the Daryl Williams Trio? How long has the Daryl Williams Trio been in existence? Is there any one or any group that you pattern the Daryl Williams Trio after?

Daryl: My first job in Gospel Music was playing piano for the Blackwood Brothers back in 1987.  At the end of '87, I relocated to Southern California and took a full time job as a Church Music Director.

I stayed there for three years.  In January of 1991 I moved to Nashville and joined the Speer Family as their Tenor singer.  I stayed with them for three years, and then began the ministry that turned into the Daryl Williams Trio.

In January of 1994, Karen and I started traveling on our own.  We sang mostly with tracks, and all of them had a third part added in to make us sound like a trio.  Later that year we hired a baritone singer and formed the Daryl Williams Trio.

We try to be ourselves as much as possible, but we have certainly been influenced by other groups.  I have always loved Trios.  I guess that the biggest influences on my group have been The Rambos, The Lanny Wolfe Trio, and the Talleys.  But I also loved the spirit and energy of The Happy Goodmans, The Hinsons, The Speers, The Downings and The Hemphills.  Being born and raised on the west coast, I was a big fan of Nancy Harmon and the Victory Voices,  Andrae Crouch and The Disciples, Doris Akers, Audrey Mier and The Archers.

2. As one of the premier songwriters in Southern Gospel, what do you look for when NOT recording one of your songs? How many of YOUR songs have the Daryl Williams Trio recorded? Is being such a renowned songwriter a blessing or hindrance to the group?

Daryl: I look for songs that say exactly what I have on my heart at the time.  Sometimes that is a hymn, sometimes it is a cover song by another artist.  It has to a song that we feel that we can do stylistically.  And it has to be different than anything that I already have in my catalogue.

We have recorded about 65 of my songs over the last ten years.

I hope that my songs have been a blessing to the group, but I guess you would have to ask our record company about it.  Our A and R director at Sonlite Records, Chris White, did insist that the new CD have 10 new songs of mine on it.  But we were able to slip in an 11th song, TURN YOUR RADIO ON, because the Speer Family agreed to record it with us.

3. You serve as Minister of Music at your home church, River of Life Assembly of God, in Smyrna, TN. How difficult is it to juggle singing with your group and still be effective at church?

Daryl:  On the surface, it looks like an impossible situation.  But it really is a perfect fit for us.  My Pastor is Johnny Minick.  We started attending River Of Life nine years ago.  The church was small at that time, about 65 people.

As the church began to grow, Johnny wanted to have a choir.  He talked to me about starting a choir for about two years, and I always said "no" , because of our traveling schedule.  Finally in 2000, he told me that if I would start the Choir, that he would let us off anytime we needed to travel and sing Trio dates.  He understood the struggle of being a Pastor and a  traveling member of the Happy Goodmans.  The Goodmans were still working dates at that time, so he understood the situation very well.   He said that he would work with us so that we could do both.    And we love doing both.  It's not only a pleasure working with Johnny Minick, but we get to work with such a talented choir also.

4. Karen, your wife, is a fantastic singer, why have you kept her hidden for so many years? OK, you are quite a Tenor yourself, is it difficult determining who gets the features?

Daryl:  I've known Karen almost all my life.  Our parents went to church together when we were children. 

But her family moved away and I lost track of her for several years.   Then one Sunday afternoon in 1989, I had the television on as I was getting ready for church.  I heard the announcer say that Karen Blythe was about to sing.

I walked into the living room and listened to her sing, and fell in love at the same time.  I remember standing there and saying to myself, I could marry her!  And three years later I did.  

She has always been featured on our CDs.  But she usually likes to sing ballads, and I sing most of the up tempo songs.   We seldom release ballads to radio.  But I wrote TOO LATE FOR LAZARUS especially for Karen to sing. 

She needed an up tempo song.   When she heard it, she said it sounded more like me than her.  But I kept telling her it was her song.  She finally agreed to record it.  Not only did she record it, she hit a grand slam home run with it.  The staff at Sonlite Records insisted that it be our next single.   

5. As a popular songwriter, I notice that you pitch your best songs to other groups. Have there been songs that you just wish you could have saved for the Daryl Williams Trio? Be specific!

Daryl: I feel like the material on our latest CD is the best collection of material that I have written in quite a while.   Keeping a song or giving it away is always a dilemma when I write a new song.  If there is a top name group standing there wanting to record it, it's very hard to say "no, I want to keep it for myself".  I try to look at it this way, if God can inspire me to write that one, He can inspire another one.   Most of the songs that we record, tend to be the latest songs I have written.  Three of the songs on our current CD, Music In The Air, were written the week before we recorded.  As a matter of fact, TOO LATE FOR LAZARUS was written two days before we recorded the music tracks.    If I write a good song six months before we record, chances are it's going to be recorded by someone else by the time we go in the studio.  I currently have only one song on hold for our next recording.  It's a song that I co-wrote with Jeff Steele.

Over the years we have recorded some of my songs that were hits by other artists, after they recorded them.
It might have been nice to have had the first shot at these.

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