Linda Williams

Biography

Linda Williams is a Dutch singer, born in Valkenswaard. She released her first single in 1980 was called “I’ll bide my time”. Her first performance on tv was in december 1980 at the show of Mies Bouwman. Her chance came when Dutch singer Oscar Harris withdrew from the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest at the very last moment, and Linda could replace him with two songs: “Het is een wonder” en “Zo is het leven”. She won with “Het is een wonder”, which gave a lot of controversy. Music producer Bart van der Laar claimed he wrote the lyrics, while the song was registered already a year before Eurovision with lyrics ánd music of Cees de Wit. Van der Laar was explaining his point of view in a Dutch tv-show, not knowing that Cees de Wit his mother was in the audience and objected. In the end, Linda Williams went to Dublin for the Eurovision Song Contest.
After the contest, Linda Williams released a few singles, the last one being “Playa” in 1985. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to get any hits. She was, however, a successfull studio musician. In 1999, we saw her back in the Eurovision Song Contest as a backing vocal for Belgium, together with her daughter Eva Jane Smeenk. Eva Jane had a hit in the Netherlands in 2008.