SOUTHERN CURLS

Julie Williams blazes her own trails in country music

BY MATTHEW MOYER

Julie Williams is a bold new voice in country music, and Orlando will see why when she plays the Blue Bamboo. The Nashville-based singer-songwriter is currently on tour, trying out new music in front of audiences around the country. Williams has received critical plaudits from the likes of PBS, CMT and Billboard for her song “Southern Curls,” and it’s well-deserved. In the same way that Lavender Country and Charley Pride spoke their personal truths through country, so does Williams. Welcome her back to where her musical journey started on Friday.

You grew up in Central Florida. Was that formative to your musical life?

You can hear the influences of growing up mixed in Central Florida in my songwriting. I talk about racism that I encountered when I was in elementary and middle school, due to my hair and the color of my skin, in my song “Southern Curls.” In my song “Take Me Home,” I write about leaving a complicated place, yet longing for it always, and learning to forgive the things that made me want to leave in the first place. But I also write about family and love, two themes that always make me think of my childhood in Florida and feel grateful to have grown up in such a diverse, vibrant and resilient state.

tion from its listeners and speaks to everything that I am: Black, white, Southern, a woman, hopeful, truthful. While you might not think of country music when you hear some of those words, country music was heavily influenced by the Black musical tradition — from Negro spirituals that were the oldest American folk songs or the banjo that was created by enslaved Africans and their descendants. It feels spiritual and honorable to play a genre that was so heavily influenced by my ancestors and to bring attention to their legacy through my music.

Tell us about “Southern Curls.”

JULIE WILLIAMS

8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24

Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts

1905 Kentucky Ave., Winter Park bluebambooartcenter.com

$25

What is it about country music that satisfies you creatively?

Country music is a genre rooted in storytelling, and I am a storyteller at heart. My music uses imagery and strong hooks to evoke emo- music@orlandoweekly.com

“Southern Curls” is a song about growing up mixed and learning to love myself, through the metaphor of my hair. When I was younger, I hated my hair. It was difficult for me to style by myself and was often the subject of taunts by bullies in elementary and middle school. As soon as my mom let me, I began to relax and straighten my hair. I wanted to blend in and maybe then I would feel “normal.” But after many years of destroying my hair with harsh chemicals, my tattered curls began to fall out. I had to stop putting chemicals and heat on my hair and slowly grew out the curls that had caused me so much grief growing up. In learning to love my curls, on their good and bad days, I began to learn to love myself, as myself, in all of my good and bad days. “Southern Curls” speaks of that journey from past to present and acknowledges that not all girls, especially girls of color, grow up feeling beautiful in their own skin.

Local Release

While perhaps better known locally as a veteran comedic actor through his longtime work as a professional improviser at SAK Comedy Lab and Universal Studios, Orlando artist Adam Scharf has also been making music in recent years. Today, Feb. 22, he releases his third album Parade!

Inspired by the philosophy of Camus, the overarching theme of Parade! is about living fully in the now because that’s all there is. In a nutshell, carpe dat diem. Such conceptual loftiness seldom results in simple pop music, and it doesn’t here.

Parade! pumps all of its nine songs full of florid, sweeping style. Lush in strings, keys and theatrical vocals, it’s baroque pop done with 1970s scale that soars between chamber, glam and psych. Even amid all that swirling sonic density, Scharf’s lyrical humor gives the affair an alternative sensibility.

Parade! is now available on major streaming services.

Concert Picks This Week

Cardiel, The Tremolords: Are Cardiel punk, metal or reggae? Yes, all of it, all at once, and somehow they’re not a monstrosity but a straight-up monster. For as kitchen sink-y as they look on paper, the Mexico City duo are especially exciting in sound. Dissect their thick rock brew further and you’ll find dub, punk, fuzz, heavy psych and pretty much anything else that stoners love. And rather than turning out like an indistinguishable fog, their music is a thrilling nebula that’s massive but agile, and unpredictable yet cohesive. All this from a White Stripes setup. Local garage kings The Tremolords bring their own (high) kicks. (9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, Uncle Lou’s, $8) his third album, Parade!, baroque pop with 1970s scale that soars between chamber, glam and psych

King Buffalo, The Swell Fellas, Umbilicus: New York State’s King Buffalo and Maryland’s The Swell Fellas will be a big double shot of heavy psych rock. While King Buffalo’s huge, streamlined sound is built for intergalactic travel, The Swell Fellas will conjure that inner wizard with their towering, proggy odysseys.

But perhaps the most intriguing act on the bill are new Tampa band Umbilicus, who are a group of certified metal stars acting out a serious undercover jones for classic hard rock. Their members sport a collective CV that includes notable bands like Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Inhuman Condition, Skull Fist and Anarchus, among others. From their work together as Umbilicus, however, they clearly want you to overlook all that. Their debut album, Path of 1000 Suns, from last autumn is an instant wormhole back to the heavy ’70s that is pure and glorious worship. (8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, Will’s Pub, $15-$20)

Sanford Porchfest: There are few happenings that are as quintessentially Sanford as this annual music festival. One of the most novel and unique music events in the metro, the annual Sanford Porchfest reclaims live music from the formal venues and takes it back to its communal roots. Rather than stages and festival grounds, this family-friendly daytime extravaganza takes over 70 acts and sets them on 17 porches in a walkable grid of Sanford’s idyllic historic residential district. While practically all genres will be represented, the folk acts featured are some of the area’s best. (11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, Downtown Sanford, free)

Weedeater, Rebelmatic, Hollow Leg, Stoned Morose: There’s either some real good love or some real good pot here in Orlando, because North Carolina sludge masters Weedeater keep coming through on the reg. Whatever it is, may it never run dry so that their impressively noxious Southern doom will continue to crush us into sweet oblivion.

But just as notable, and less frequent to Orlando, are New York City tourmates Rebelmatic, whose funk-strutting hardcore is putting rock’s original Black pulse back into punk. Fishbone’s Angelo Moore appeared on their latest record (2022’s Mourning Dove EP), so you know these dudes are down. When HR says that Rebelmatic reminds him of Bad Brains then, boom, case closed: They are officially a must-see.

Homegrown openers Hollow Leg and Stoned Morose will keep it nasty and neckdeep in the smoked-out tarpits of doom and sludge. (7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, Will’s Pub, $20) baolehuu@orlandoweekly.com

THURSDAY, FEB. 23

Whiskey Business

In its eighth year, Whiskey Business is bringing big changes as the event moves into the swanky digs of the brand-new, lakefront Winter Park Events Center. So expect a more upscale feel, along with more than double the number of whiskeys and local food vendors as in years past. And as always, tickets are allinclusive of the whiskeys, the food and complimentary beer and wine, which means even the non-whiskey-lover will