Explore the work of the Princeton, Indiana producer and engineer Robert Hosea Williams (also known as R. José Williams) best known for his work with Gil Scott-Heron. Williams was born in 1936 in Princeton, Indiana, the county seat of Gibson County in the state’s far southwestern corner. While his career would eventually take him far from southern Indiana, his family’s roots in the region ran deep. His mother, Martha Alice Stewart, came from one of Gibson County’s long-established Black families. Her father, Hosea Henry Stewart, was born in Lyles Station, Indiana, one of the most significant Black settlements in the state. Founded in the 1840s by free Black landowners, Lyles Station grew into a self-sustaining farming community with its own school, churches, businesses, and railroad access. For decades, it served as a center of Black life in the region. Gibson County was home to several early Black settlements, formed by free Black families migrating from the South in the early 19th century. These communities emphasized land ownership, education, spiritual life, and mutual support—values passed down across generations, even as many rural settlements declined in the 20th century due to flooding, economic change, and migration into towns like Princeton. Williams’ family left Princeton in the late 1940s, but the values of self-determination and cultural pride rooted in Gibson County found their way into Williams’ production work, reflected in the socially conscious music he produced for artists like Gil Scott-Heron and Father’s Children. In the early 1970s, Williams established himself as a recording engineer and producer in the Washington, D.C. area, building a career that placed him at the center of the city’s vibrant but often overlooked soul and R&B scene. In D.C., Williams founded Red, Black and Green Productions, named after the Pan-African flag. Under that banner, he worked with many R&B and funk musicians clustered around the nation’s capital, including Father’s Children, The Summits, and Dyson’s Faces. In 1973, Williams came to the attention of poet and singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron, who had been teaching at Federal City College in D.C. Scott-Heron had gained national prominence with his 1971 recording The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Along with his musical collaborator Brian Jackson, Scott-Heron secured Williams as producer and engineer for his classic 1974 release, Winter in America. Join us for music featuring the engineer and producer Robert Hosea Williams.
