When Jacob William was a child he wasn’t much of a talker.
“I’m completely deaf in my right ear, so I had a lot of trouble speaking when I was a kid,” he explains.
But when he was five years old, William, who grew up in Devon, England, was at his friend’s house when he discovered the outlet that would provide him with a new form of vocal expression going forward: the piano.
“I completely deserted my friend for the rest of the day and just made all the different sounds I could,” he says. “I thought it was really, really cool.”
He begged his parents for piano lessons and when they finally gave in William’s musical journey really took off.
These days William is best known as a singer with a wide vocal range and as a songwriter with a penchant for writing tunes that have a classic, emotional tenor. While he found his initial success in the U.K., he’s currently residing in Deep Cove as he works away on a new album.
“I’m kind of hibernating, as it were, in Canada,” he says.
While his move here has been useful creatively, it’s also served to fulfil perhaps an even greater purpose.
“Things were going really all quite well and then I had some kind of scary health news at the end of the year,” explains William, who has been in Canada for almost four months. “I thought if it all ends tomorrow I haven’t done all the things I want to do. I have a slightly spontaneous personality and I thought, I want to know what it’s like to live in other places. Canada’s always been at the top of my list, especially Vancouver.”
He’s been living the quiet life here in North Vancouver – drawn here by the North Shore’s allure of being able to ski in the morning and head to the beach in the afternoon – but this comes off the heels of a year in which he embarked on two international tours and performed on the BBC.
For one of his BBC sessions the 31-year-old singer sang an a cappella version of the 1939 classic “Over the Rainbow” made famous by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.
Asked how it felt to sing a song live over the radio without the benefit of accompanying musicians William says he was unfazed by the added pressure.
“I absolutely love it. I think it’s just the coolest thing. It’s kind of like an adrenaline rush, the fact that you have nothing to full back onto, but at the same time it means you have full control over whether or not it’s going to go well. I think it’s really quite a thrilling place to be,” he says.
Using his vocals to breathe life into an old classic can be a challenge, but it’s one that fits William’s musical wheelhouse. His debut album was last year’s Break the Glass EP, a stirring set that William recorded live in his attic back home in England.
“I think if you record something live there’s a bit more presence behind it,” he says.
Besides some brief guitar overdubs, he recorded the whole album himself. And while a capella versions of Judy Garland songs and albums he recorded make up one part of William’s process, he’s equally comfortable collaborating with others.
A recent video series on his website (jacobwilliam.co.uk) shows him recording songs alongside church choirs, using the voices of many to add layers to his soaring, emotional tunes. While his music doesn’t necessarily conform to any one genre, he says the music he was exposed to through his parents is a good place to start when trying to get an understanding. Albums by Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Whitney Houston and Elvis Presley had a profound influence on him growing up.
“All those five different albums kind of informed what my musical output would be. I have a little bit of musicality in there from shows and cinematic-type songs,” he says. “I like old-school stuff. I think anything that has a really good singer behind it I can kind of get onboard with, whether it be rock, pop, jazz.”
He adds that in the moments when he covers a classic song he tries to remember what it was like the first time he originally heard it, effectively channelling those emotions into the performance.
While some might view it as unlikely that an individual who is a deaf in one ear would pursue his passion in music, William says he just views setbacks as a good way to learn and grow stronger.
“The fact that I really wanted to be a singer and I couldn’t really do that well when I was 18 it made me just work really, really hard to make sure that someday I would be able to. That’s a process I’m still doing every day and trying to get better and better at,” he says.
Jacob William is performing as part of the free Cates Park Concert Series Aug. 26 at 6 p.m.
