Yolonda R. Williams, affectionately known as "Chubby" to family and friends, is a Mezzo Soprano, extraordinary jazz stylist, spirited gospel vocalist, song writer, and back-up singer, an innovator in creating new rhythms, phrasings and styles. She soars through a vocal range of first soprano to first tenor singing most music genres.
Yolonda has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Calenwold, the Atlanta Civic Center, Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre; and throughout the United States, France, Spain, and Luxembourg.
Yolonda has written three original songs featured on her CD Second Chance. She performed with the Atlanta Opera in Porgy and Bess, including their European Tour. She has also performed in the new presentation of Jesus Christ Superstar Gospel with the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Her credits include an appearance on the television sitcom, House of Payne and the movie, For Colored Girls, produced by Tyler Perry Studios. She starred in the 2012 premiere of the stage play Sisters by Brad Candie, performed in many Americolor Opera Alliance presentations and with the Ballethnic Dance Company of Atlanta. She is currently working on a second CD and other projects.
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by CAROLYN S. CARLSON
Special to Atlanta Daily World (1999)
Yolonda Williams inhales deeply, smiles and softly starts singing. It’s the lull before the storm as she slowly unleashes her four-octave voice on another old standard. Listeners quickly sense the natural lungpower underlying a style that she calls “a simplistic sweetness in tone and quality.”
Williams comes by her wider than normal range and stronger than normal power naturally - her mother was born with the gift and passed it on to her second daughter. Yolonda was just a toddler when churchgoers in her native Augusta, Georgia first heard her clear, strong voice cut through the congregational hymn.
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Williams and her family moved to New York City when she was 13 and soon she was immersed in the choirs of Bridge Street AME Church in Brooklyn. She sang a solo with her school choir during the New York World’s Fair in 1965. She went on to a distinguished choral career, culminating with her landing a spot in the prestigious All-City Chorus, with which she sang at both Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
As an adult, Williams sang in church choirs and gave solo jazz performances at various Brooklyn nightclubs, while working as a social worker and grant proposal writer for the city of New York for 27 years. In addition to entertaining Big Bethel worshipers, Yolonda has also lent her vocal talents to Atlanta Sings!, a women’s choral ensemble that performs music of the theater, jazz, seasonal and popular tunes.