Lost In a Desert World : The Autobiography Of Roland Johnson (as told to Karl Williams)

This unabridged version of "Roland Johnson's Lost In a Desert World (as told to Karl Williams)" includes Roland's voice on the Introduction, as well as the speech he gave at the Third International People First Conference in Toronto, (June,1993)("Who's In Control"). In addition, the Appendix, "In Memory Of Roland," offers a recording of Karl Williams' song, "We'll Be Thinking Of You," from the 1998 CD RESPECT: SONGS OF THE SELF-ADVOCACY MOVEMENT by Karl Williams & Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), which won a place on the Grammy ballot that year.

Singer, guitarist, songwriter, novelist, poet, folk artist, nonfiction author - Karl Williams continues to widen the reach of his talent.

Williams broke onto the music scene in 1985 with his first album, LIVING AT THE END OF TIME. Soon after the album's release SingOut! Magazine called "It's a Pleasure To Know You," a track from that album, "a folk classic." The song has since been recorded on Rounder, Flying Fish, and many other labels.

Despite his growing reputation as a songwriter and the possibility of a successful career in Nashville, Williams began to look for opportunities to use his talents to meet ambitions closer to his heart. In the 1970s, he and his wife had worked with children with developmental - i.e., cognitive or intellectual - disabilities, first in institutional settings and then as houseparents in a group home. When Williams left this work to try his hand at writing, he felt - as he put it - as if his life had been cut in two.

And so he began writing songs for a group called Speaking For Ourselves. Run by people with developmental disabilities, the mission of Speaking For Ourselves is to speak out on important issues, to provide support for its members, and to teach the public about the needs, wishes, and potential of people with disabilities. When Williams found that he could write songs that serve the group's cause, which is called self-advocacy, he believed he'd found the way to put his divided life back together.

With songs like "Speaking For Ourselves" and "People First," Williams began to provide a kind of soundtrack for the daily struggle of those with developmental disabilities. Eventually, his efforts were rewarded not only with the praise within the movement, but also by critical acclaim outside it. Williams’ CD RESPECT: SONGS OF THE SELF-ADVOCACY MOVEMENT, produced and recorded with the national group Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), earned a place as a candidate for Best Contemporary Folk Album in the 1998 Grammy Awards.

And the next year two books appeared, two "as-told-to autobiographies," by means of which Williams enabled two important leaders in the self-advocacy movement to tell their stories in their own words, in what one reviewer called "work of pioneering authenticity."

In 1999 just before the holidays Karl's CD-single "To the New Century," a hard-edged anthem featuring toasts in 17 languages from around the world, was released and quickly picked up by radio stations across the US, and in Canada, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The album, FROM ONE MILLENNIUM TO ANOTHER, followed shortly and that February was named "CD of the Month" by a major indie radio programmer in Berlin.

The fall of 2000 saw the release of Karl's first children's CD BIG FISH LITTLE FISH. Just a few months later Earlychildhood Magazine included BIG FISH in its curriculum for the new Roots & Shoots Program of The Jane Goodall Institute.

And in June the CD was chosen, along with offerings from companies such as Brio, LEGO, and Golden Books, as one of DR. TOY'S BEST VACATION PRODUCTS FOR 2001. (Dr. Toy is Stevanne Auerbach, Ph.D.)

On the horizon are a third as-told-to autobiography, this one with a graphic artist whose undiagnosed autism trapped her within the mental health system until she was in her 40's; a second children's album; and Karl's own autobiographical novel.