NEED TO KNOW
- Former New York Yankees star Bernie Williams has all the time liked music
- The baseball participant retired in 2006 after a 16-year profession within the MLB and has pursued music as a second act ever since
- Williams, 57, is about to carry out at Carnegie Corridor in January 2026
Bernie Williams performed with the New York Yankees for all 16 years of his Main League Baseball profession. On the identical time he was cementing himself as an All-Star centerfielder, he was additionally honing one other set of abilities within the arts.
The previous athlete, 57, talks with ipromiseyoumedia about his lifelong love for music and the way it’s taken him from Yankee Stadium to Carnegie Corridor.
“I began enjoying guitar across the identical time I began enjoying baseball. I used to be round 8 years previous,” he says, noting that his mother was “an educator within the public training system in Puerto Rico,” whereas his father was a retired service provider mariner.
“All of them established some roots in Puerto Rico, the place I grew up, and began taking guitar classes, informally, after I was 7 or 8 years previous. And took that for a 12 months. That sparked my love for music,” he provides.
Williams attended a performing arts highschool in San Juan, studying find out how to play classical music whereas additionally placing in work on the baseball diamond. By the point he was 16 years previous, he was already getting observed by scouts, and shortly after highschool, he signed with the Yankees.
However Williams didn’t have to decide on between his main league profession and his love for music.
“I all the time stored my guitar with me, and I used to take it to the clubhouse and to the bus rides, and to the aircraft rides. It was one thing that I all the time cherished and all the time had a good time performing in entrance of my teammates,” he says. “I may use it for every part — after I was unhappy, after I was pleased, after I was pumped up, after I was offended. Music served me for every part.”
The five-time All-Star performed with the Yankees from 1991 to 2006, selecting up a number of accolades, together with 4 Golden Glove awards, a Silver Slugger Award, the American League batting title in 1998, and the 1996 AL Championship Sequence Most Helpful Participant Award, all along with successful 4 World Sequence.
Whereas he was racking up skilled accomplishments, Williams was having simply as a lot enjoyable off the baseball subject. In 1993, Paul O’Neill joined the Yankees, and in response to Williams “occurred to be an excellent drummer.”
“We ended up having these nice jam classes, earlier than and after batting follow and rain delays,” he shares. “We smuggled individuals in from the skin to have these nice jam classes that no person ever knew about.”
Along with enjoying together with his teammates, an opportunity encounter obtained him face-to-face with “The Boss,” one in all New Jersey’s most well-known residents and a longtime Yankees fan.
“I’ve my guitar within the locker room, and Bruce Springsteen confirmed up, and I stated, ‘Properly, I am not gonna make him signal a ball or bat,'” he recollects. “I took my guitar, and he signed it for me. He put ‘Bernie, for those who ever get bored with baseball … Bruce Springsteen.’ ”
“Twenty years later, I’m enjoying with him on the identical stage at one of many Joe Torre Secure at Dwelling Basis dinners. I am enjoying an acoustic model of Glory Days with him and his spouse,” he says. “It was like a quantum leap second. Like, ‘What am I doing right here?’ It was superb.”
In the course of the opening of the brand new Yankee Stadium in 2009, Williams was in a position to mix his passions as he performed a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
“I had this chance and a music that’s so recognizable, however I had this melancholic model of it, which I got here up with after I retired, and I used to be feeling a bit of melancholic about lacking the sport and never having the ability to play it anymore,” Williams shares. “The chord that I put within the tune mirrored my feelings on the time of gratitude, a tribute, however nonetheless disappointment, and a bit of melancholic.”
Regardless of Williams’ love for music, over the last 5 – 6 years of his profession, he didn’t have a walk-up music.
“I walked as much as the plate with no music. Music was such an ideal presence in my life that it was so distracting … possibly I am going through Pedro Martinez and a troublesome scenario, and I must be utterly targeted on the plan of motion that I have to execute to ensure that I am profitable towards him,” he explains. “I do not need my thoughts being flooded with some blues music from Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was simply so distracting that I selected to not have it.”
After he retired, Williams acquired his Bachelor of Music from the Manhattan Faculty of Music in 2016. Since then, he is continued to hone his musical abilities and carry out across the nation.
Williams, who was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2009 for his jazz album, Shifting Ahead, might be acting at Carnegie Corridor on Jan. 13, 2026, alongside famed tenor Jonathan Tetelman. The night time may also characteristic Katia Reguero Lindor on the violin. Some particular visitors embrace former basketball participant Stephon Marbury, journalist Darren Rovell, and former New York Met Jose Reyes.
In response to Williams, on the efficiency, followers can anticipate to listen to “a mixture of very eclectic performances.”
“I’m so grateful to have the ability to collaborate with Jonathan Tetelman. He is a world-renowned tenor, and he is world. I am gonna do my little factor with jazz, blues and rock. We’re gonna have instrumental tunes, my compositions and covers of tunes that we made preparations for,” he provides. “It is gonna be this nice mixture of operatic classical music, clashing with pop, Latin, jazz and Broadway American Songbook.”
To Williams, making ready for a giant efficiency is like making ready for a World Sequence Recreation, each of that are the results of constant follow.
“You have to follow and actually spend time with the instrument and respect the music that you just’re enjoying and never cheat your self out of the time that you might want to spend. So when the sunshine is on you, you are like, ‘Okay, I’ve accomplished this one million instances, I am prepared,'” he says.
“It is the identical factor I drew from my baseball preparation. You go into this routine of training each side of your talent. So when you find yourself introduced with the chance to supply, with the sport on the road within the final inning, going through a troublesome opponent, you may depend on your preparation, and that will get you thru.”