Newcomers Williams Honor Blend Modern, Classic Country On New Project

Williams Honor performs. Photo: Haley Crow

New country duo Williams Honor hail from the Asbury Park, New Jersey area, an area that helped forge the music of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, but it was a love of both modern and classic country music that drew William Honor’s Reagan Richards and Gordon Brown together.

“We started to realize when we were talking about Jo Dee Messina’s second album, ninth cut on the album, that this isn’t just a very superficial love of country music,” says Richards. “It’s real. So we started writing and it just developed.”

Both Richards and Brown have had extensive careers in music. Richards has toured as a backup singer for artists including Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, and Lisa Loeb, and portrayed Patsy Cline in a two-week run of the musical Always Patsy Cline. Brown is a producer and multi-instrumentalist. His former band, Highway 9, was signed with RCA Nashville.

Williams Honor recently visited the MusicRow offices to preview music from their self-titled project, including the current single, “No Umbrella,” which Richards and Brown co-wrote with singer-songwriter Cyndi Thomson.

“I have been such a fan of Cyndi Thomson,” Richards says. “We were Facebook friends so I wrote to her that we were coming to Nashville and asked if she wanted to write together. I didn’t think she would ever write back, but she did and said she would love to try writing together. So we went to a place off Music Row and wrote ‘No Umbrella.’”

The single is currently at No. 32 on the MusicRow CountryBreakout Chart.

Williams Honor with MusicRow Magazine owner/publisher Sherod Robertson. Photo: Haley Crow

Williams Honor with MusicRow Magazine staffers.