Country Music Icon's Lost Album, Found in a Storm Cellar, Is Releasing 9 Years After His Death
Don Williams was an iconic country music star who had 17 number-one hits and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Although he died in 2017 at the age of 78, a new album has just been released called Epilogue: The Cellar Tapes, which you can listen to on all major streaming platforms. It contains 12 unheard songs from the star.
PEOPLE spoke with his son, Tim Williams, about the project. He said, "Daddy had the foresight, I guess, to... Since he owned these, we have a storm cellar, root cellar in the house I basically grew up in, and they've just been down there for 60 years or whatever."
He went on to explain his feelings when he first found the tapes, admitting, "To be honest, at that point, I was still pretty ho-hum. And it was pretty much when I heard the vocals that I was excited. And so yeah, when I first heard him, it was like, 'Yeah, that's Daddy in his prime.'"
He also spoke about how powerful it was to listen to his father's voice. "I never sat down with just strictly raw vocal hearing," he said. "There's nowhere to hide when you're listening to somebody's raw vocal. Honestly, just his talent, his chops, I've got a better appreciation for."
He continued, "You get a whole different view of somebody when you're hearing just the raw, unprocessed. Obviously, this was a way before tuning and stuff like that. There's nowhere to hide. It's just the microphone between your mouth and the tape."
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Garth Fundis, a producer who worked with Don for years, was also excited about the album. He helped put everything together and come up with the name. "I kept looking and thinking about that one word that might best describe this collection," he said. "And I came upon the idea one day [that] Epilogue would be appropriate." He continued, "We liked the idea. We all agreed on it pretty quickly."
When asked what his father would think of the new project, Tim said, "He would be proud of it. He'd be proud of what I've done, what Garth's done with it, and I think he'd give his approval and be pleased."
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This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 5:59 AM.