And his eighth album, Where I Started From, was released in 2017 with his vanity label, Melvin Williams Entertainment's partnership with New Day Christian Distributors.
[7] Tony Cummings, indicating in a ten out of ten review by Cross Rhythms, recognizes, Williams is "a brilliant singer able to wrench every last piece of emotion out of songs that defy the depressing obsession with cheap sex of much secular R&B preferring instead lyrics of transcendent love of God.
[7] In 2017, New Day Christian Distributors partnered with the Grammy Award Nominated Artist Melvin Williams and his vanity label Melvin Williams Entertainment (MWE) on his highly anticipated new studio recording, Where I Started From.
He is part of an extraordinary group of musicians / artists, e.g., Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, Al McKay (formerly of Earth Wind & Fire), Jonathan Butler, Billy Ray Cyrus, Cesar Rosas (formerly of Los Lobos), Dick Dale (the King of Surfer Music), Kurt Cobain, Bobby Womack, Seal, Jimi Hendrix, Justin Bieber, and Albert King, Sr, to name a few.
As US Music Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Jazz at Lincoln Center's "The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad",[13] Melvin Williams tours internationally hosting Master Class at American Corners and performing concerts at various Performing Arts Theatres, Festivals, Music Conservatories,[14] such as, the Usadba Jazz Festival[15] in Moscow, Russia; the Baku Jazz Center[16][17] in Baku, Azerbaijan; the Turkmenistan Cinema and Concert Hall[18] in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan; the International Jazz Festival in Chelyabinsk,[19] Club 33 Amphitheatre in Tbilisi Vake Park[20] in Tbilisi, Georgia.
In 1950's, the US State Department Ambassadors program began with American Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington to foster a mutual understanding between the U.S. and other nations through American music and culture.