Chelsea Williams

Chelsea Williams, a singer and songwriter whose tastes reach back to Bob Dylan, widely regarded as the godfather of the form, and forward to his 1990s counterpart Sheryl Crow, built her reputation through the demanding route of busking along Santa Monica’s crowded Third Street Promenade. She also composed and tracked her own material for independent releases throughout the 2000s, yet those street performances ultimately drew the attention of Kirk Pasich, president of Blue Élan Records, who offered her a contract and oversaw the 2017 arrival of Boomerang, her first proper full-length, which merged Americana textures with pop sensibilities.

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Williams relocated with her family to the Glendale, California area while still a child. Her mother had once nurtured ambitions of a music career, so the household was steeped in song; by her teenage years Williams herself was playing guitar and writing material shaped by classic-rock songwriters and the alternative-rock acts of the 1990s. After testing the Hollywood club circuit she gravitated instead toward busking and eventually claimed a regular spot on the bustling Third Street Promenade, only blocks from the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica.

She continued capturing her original songs, most often at home on her computer. A self-titled full-length appeared in 2007, followed by the mini-LP Decoration Aisle in 2008. The next decade yielded few official releases, though a 2012 cover of Bruno Mars and Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire” surfaced in a Chevrolet Cruze campaign. She stayed busy nonetheless, occasionally joining the side project Salty Suites and attracting interest from producer Toby Gad. The two finished an album intended for Interscope Records, but the label passed. After issuing Dreamcatcher on her own in 2016, Williams met Kirk Pasich; once signed to Blue Élan he matched her with producer Ross Garren. The resulting Boomerang, a broad blend of Americana, folk, country, and West Coast pop, reached stores in August 2017. Early in 2020 she unveiled the breezy single “Beautiful and Strange,” the first track from the album of the same name that arrived later that year.