Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir

Award-winning singer and songwriter Williams is ready to tell her secrets. Renowned for her determination to defy expectations, Williams has made a career of bending and blending musical genres. In this honest, inspiring memoir, she explores the people and places that influenced that career. From her childhood, facing her mother’s alcoholism and diagnosis of manic depression, to her later-in-life musical renaissance with Rough Trade Records, Williams has demonstrated an ardent unwillingness to compromise her ideals. Narrated by the author, some parts of the listening experience take on a candid, conversational air, while others are a bit flat, lacking the flair that one might expect with Williams’s engaging stories of stardom. Listeners may be surprised to find that Williams’s speaking voice does not match the emotive expression in her singing. Though a professional narrator may have added pizzazz and given a more polished performance, Williams’s no-frills nonchalance adds edgy authenticity to the narrative, especially when she reads her stirring song lyrics with her signature Southern drawl.