On March 1, 2016, Don Williams announced he was retiring from country music. He was 76. It was the second time he had said goodbye in ten years, and the two goodbyes could hardly have been more different. The first took a world tour. The second was a short statement about going home.
The goodbye that took a whole year
Early in 2006, Williams announced what he called his “Farewell Tour of the World.” True to the name, he played dates across the United States and overseas, where he had a devoted following. The tour passed through theaters in places like Bozeman, Montana, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it closed with a sold-out Final Farewell Concert at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts in Memphis on November 21, 2006.
The plan, as local papers reported during the tour, was simple: he would retire with his wife, Joy, to their farm outside Nashville.
That plan fit the man. For most of his career, Williams had kept the business at arm’s length. He skipped industry parties, gave few interviews and deliberately limited his touring so he could be with his family on the farm. Of his own success, he once said simply:
“I never have been too big on that.”
Why the first retirement did not last
By 2010, he was back. In October of that year he returned for a two-night stand at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, and that same month he was officially inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
He missed his own induction. Sidelined with bronchitis, Williams could not attend the Medallion Ceremony on October 24, 2010, an honor he called the biggest of his life. His manager, Robert Pratt, accepted the medallion for him. During the tribute, Alison Krauss described his voice as sitting somewhere between Santa and the Almighty.
The comeback kept going. In 2012 he released And So It Goes, his first new album since 2004, with Alison Krauss, Keith Urban and Vince Gill as guests. Reflections followed in 2014. Both reached the top 20 of the country albums chart, and he kept filling theaters at home and abroad. In May 2014 he played the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, the same year he made his final tour of the UK.
A spring tour that never started
For 2016, Williams was booked on a 21-city run through the South and Midwest. It was set to open on February 17 at the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, move on to the Saenger Theatre in Pensacola and the Tivoli in Chattanooga, and finish on April 16 in Manistee, Michigan.
On February 2, his publicist announced that he had undergone unexpected hip replacement surgery and that the tour was being postponed. No details were given about when or where the operation took place. The word used was “postponed,” but the same announcement told ticket buyers to contact the venues about refunds. No makeup dates were ever set. At Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, where he was due on April 13, fans were told to get their money back where they had bought their tickets.
Two sentences on March 1
Four weeks after the surgery news, on Tuesday, March 1, 2016, the announcement came from Nashville. Don Williams was retiring after six decades in music, and every remaining show was cancelled. His statement was two sentences long.
“It’s time to hang my hat up and enjoy some quiet time at home.”
The second sentence thanked his fans, his friends and his family for their support. That was all. There was no final concert, no last run of dates and no televised goodbye. Writers who covered the news pointed out that this was not his first retirement, and some hoped it would not be his last. This time it was.
The music that came out after he stopped
Three weeks after the announcement, a final release was set. Don Williams in Ireland: The Gentle Giant in Concert, a live CD and DVD drawn from that May 2014 show at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, came out on April 15, 2016. It carried 19 songs, from “Good Ole Boys Like Me” to “Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good” and “Tulsa Time.”
Others picked up the songs too. His longtime producer and friend Garth Fundis assembled a tribute album, Gentle Giants: The Songs of Don Williams, with Pistol Annies, Brandy Clark, Lady Antebellum, Dierks Bentley, Chris Stapleton, Keb’ Mo’, Garth Brooks and others. It was released on May 26, 2017, timed to the day before his 78th birthday, with the performances donated in support of MusiCares.
September 2017
The quiet time at home lasted about a year and a half. Don Williams died on September 8, 2017, in Mobile, Alabama, after a short illness. His publicist said the cause was emphysema. He was 78.
He was survived by Joy, his wife of 57 years, whom he had married in April 1960, along with their sons, Gary and Tim, and their grandchildren. A private memorial service was held for him at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, the place that had honored him in 2010 on the night he was too sick to attend.