It took me almost an hour and a half to navigate Subway route changes and service interruptions to get from my little apartment in Soho to meet Zach Williams at a cafe somewhere near Park Slope last Sunday. A mutual friend, and fellow Southerner, recently introduced me to the musician, so I was anxious to meet Williams in person and find out more about the new project he had mentioned via email. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Williams picked a location with Southern roots—a coffeeshop aptly named Roots, founded by a Brooklynite from Birmingham—and patiently waited while I made my slow trek from Manhattan. When I finally got out of the Subway and walked to our designated meeting spot, he texted me that he'd be carrying a small child in a yellow sweater, and like magic, he and his adorable tow-headed daughter Loretta appeared to my right. Together, we walked past the remains of a four-alarm fire that had ravaged a building and a grocery store the night before and into Roots, where Williams' lovely, and very pregnant, wife Stacy was ordering breakfast.

Despite the auspicious beginning to the morning, I had a great time with the Williams trio. Zach and Stacy grew up together in Georgia and moved to New York in 2006. Though he's from a musical family, Williams was a late bloomer as far as singers and songwriters go. When Stacy was thrown from a horse and hospitalized during their first year of marriage, doctors told them she'd never walk again; music and friends became Williams' solace. After a lot of praying and one miraculous recovery, Stacy and Zach walked out of Atlanta's Shepherd Center (where Christopher Reeve was treated after a similar fall) and set about moving to New York, an idea that was hatched with the core group of friends who kept Williams company during Stacy's hospitalization. More than four years later, Williams has toured with Ben Folds and headlined The Bowery Ballroom, an event celebrated with a Billy Reid–sponsored party back in September.

Photo by Eric Ryan Anderson

In the last few weeks, Williams has gathered a group of seven musicians to launch a new honky tonk project. All of the members are from the South and all live pretty close to Williams and his family. It's an impressive group, including an Emmy winner, an actor, a producer, and a Princeton Masters candidate (no waiting tables or dog-walking day jobs for this crowd). And the sound is just as eclectic and smart, with a pedal steel guitar, a fiddle, a bass, a couple of acoustic guitars, a piano, and a banjo, not to mention really soulful vocals. When I asked Williams where he saw this group going, he didn't want to put any restrictions on their path or fence them in too much with an agenda. At this point, they don't even have a name. What he does envision is a weekly dinner/musical event in which the group will play their latest country tunes over a family-style meal—kind of like one of those old school church potluck dinners, but with rocking honky tonk jams. The location is still TBD, but Williams plans to announce it in the next couple of weeks (he envisions Rockwood Music Hall as the likely venue). First, however, he and Stacy have to give birth to their second baby.

Photo by Eric Ryan Anderson

Click here to listen to "You Can Be All Kinds of Emotional," by Zach Williams.