(September 4, 2025) Longtime SoulTrackers know that when we see a project involving SoulTracks Readers’ Choice Awards winner Brandon Williams, we take notice. So, we immediately engaged when Brandon told us of a new song he was working on with Detroit-based singer and songwriter Al Bettis.
An artist who, amazingly, didn’t pick up a guitar until age 30, Bettis performs with the ease of a longtime veteran, and that sense of comfort pervades the Williams-produced “Hello.” Like much of Williams’ own work, “Hello” tastily rides the border between R&B and jazz — a lushly produced, rhythmic ballad that should appeal to lovers of both genres in the way that Ephraim Lewis’s “Drowning In Your Eyes” did more than three decades ago.
Bettis describes his work as “rooted in vulnerability, hope and the beauty of everyday life,” and “Hello” reflects that outlook, telling the story of an early encounter with a woman who enraptures the singer:
Time stood still
I could hear the future on her lips
Her beauty held me captive ‘til she said “Hello”
At a time when musical minimalism dominates broadcast radio, it is fun to hear a song that is both a throwback and, hopefully, a throw-forward, capturing a universally identifiable emotion with the kind of full-bodied production that gives it an instant classic feel. Check it out.
By Chris Rizik
