Keith Williams

Keith Williams, EPM Music Group recording artist and senior vice president, has left his post as director of Music and Arts at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor at the height of the ’60s Civil Rights Movement. His final service there took place on Easter Sunday.

“This was not a sudden decision,” says Williams in a news release, who will continue to live and work in the Atlanta area. “We’ve been planning this transition for months so that I can focus on my new duties as an executive with EPM Music Group and also so that I can finish my CD and fulfill the call I have to the national musical arena.”

Williams has been juggling many roles over the past year with his church duties, helping push Earnest Pugh’s smash hit “I Need Your Glory” to No. 1 on Billboard’s Gospel Chart and signing music veteran Chrystal Rucker as the first artist on EPM Music Group. At the same time, Williams has been sorting through songs and writing tunes for his August 14 sophomore CD release “Introducing Keith Williams.”

Williams is a classically trained pianist and vocalist. He’s spent the last two decades as a worship leader at prestigious churches across the United States such as Ebenezer A.M.E. Church in Fort Washington, Maryland,  and the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Williams’ style is a cross between the legendary Douglas Miller’s nearly operatic baritone and John Stoddard’s polished notes. Over the years, Williams has written songs for Jennifer Holliday, Dottie Peoples, Vanessa Armstrong and Earnest Pugh.  His debut CD, “…& Again I Say Rejoice,” appeared in 2008. For more information, go to www.epmmusicgroup.com