William Fitzsimmons

About

William Fitzsimmons built a following the slow way, through whispered folk songs recorded on home equipment and passed around on MySpace. He dropped a career as a mental health therapist to make music, and it shows in the writing: his albums dig into divorce, family and loss with a bluntness that has drawn comparisons to Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens and Elliott Smith. The Sparrow and the Crow, written about his own divorce, topped the singer songwriter charts on iTunes in the US and Australia. He plays piano, banjo, mandolin, ukulele and more, and sometimes folds electronica into his folk. His songs have turned up on Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, One Tree Hill and Teen Wolf, which did plenty for his reach. The catalogue runs from Gold in the Shadows and Lions through the two Pittsburgh records, a live album, Mission Bell, Ready the Astronaut, and a pair of cover albums.