Holly Williams: Her family is famous but the sound is her own

Holly Williams' surname, and the history behind it - her father is Hank Williams Jr., her grandfather the country music legend - might be the end of a story rather than the beginning of one.

But where Bocephus built a career leeching off his father's legacy, Williams Jr.'s children have gone off in their own distinct directions.

Williams hasn't gone quite as far afield as her half-brother, who bills himself as Hank III and stages three-hour concerts that range from western swing to speed metal. But her show at the Tin Angel Sunday night was more about hushed reflection than honky-tonking, more about fingerpicked melodies than fiddle wails. If there's a Williams she sounds like, it's not Hank but Lucinda.

Backed by her husband, Kings of Leon sideman Chris Coleman, on guitar and bassist Annie Clements, on loan from Sugarland, Williams devoted an hour to songs mostly drawn from her new album, The Highway, and its 2009 predecessor, Here With Me. But she reached back to her 2004 debut for "Sometimes," in which she mused, "I wish I were an angel in '52 . . . I would have saved him, the man who sang the blues."

In the touring lament "Without You," which she played alone at the piano, Williams cannily lumped her lineage in with the rest of her touring gear: "I got here on crowded trains / with old guitars and a famous name." (Apparently due to getting banged up en route, one of those guitars kept slipping out of tune, lending a discordant edge to several songs.)

Ultimately, though, the history Williams best evoked was her own. "Without Jesus Here With Me" evoked the faith that got her through the aftermath of a near-fatal car crash, and the tender "Waiting on June" sketched her maternal grandparents' romance from first kiss to final rest. "June," she acknowledged, is a tough song for her to get through, but its power came from the way her voice broke just enough to suggest the feeling she was holding back. Even as she poured her heart out, she kept a piece of it all to herself.