Early life and education Fitzsimmons was born the youngest child of two blind parents and was raised in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is said to have developed his multiple instrumental abilities from his mother and father, both of whom were recreational musicians. His childhood home even housed a fully functional
pipe organ, hand-built by his father. He was taught the piano and trombone during elementary school and began teaching himself guitar while in junior high. He is also proficient at the
banjo,
melodica,
ukulele, and
mandolin, and is known for mixing
folk music with
electronica in some of his production. In addition to performance abilities, Fitzsimmons is credited as the engineer and producer of his first two releases. He is often compared to contemporaries
Iron & Wine,
Sufjan Stevens, and
Elliott Smith.
Career beginnings, first three albums Fitzsimmons career in music came only after completing a master's degree in
counseling at
Geneva College and working as a mental health therapist. During a summer break in the midst of graduate school, he recorded a collection of songs on home recording equipment, which would subsequently become his debut album.
Until When We Are Ghosts was released in 2005. Fitzsimmons' writing often includes references to personal and family subject matter. His 2006 sophomore album,
Goodnight, also self-produced and recorded at home, is said to have been based largely on his parents' divorce during his adolescence, and his 2008 work,
The Sparrow and the Crow, his first recorded in a studio, was written entirely about and following his own divorce. The singer's music was noticed initially largely through
MySpace and touring with fellow artists
Ingrid Michaelson,
Brooke Fraser, and
Cary Brothers, among others, and from several featured song placements on popular television programs such as ''
Grey's Anatomy. "Hazy", a duet with Rosi Golan, was featured in Dollhouse''.
Subsequent albums, touring On February 8, 2011, Fitzsimmons released a music video for a song called "The Tide Pulls from the Moon", from his upcoming album,
Gold in the Shadows. The album came out in March, and Fitzsimmons toured in Europe to promote it. His next album,
Lions, was issued on February 18, 2014. On May 12, 2015, Fitzsimmons published the first of a pair of mini-records concerning his family, titled
Pittsburgh. On April 1, 2016, he released the second of the pair, his eighth album, entitled
Charleroi: Pittsburgh, Vol. 2. The record is about the grandmother he never knew—"Charleroi is the second half of the Pittsburgh story. The Pittsburgh album was about the grandmother I knew. Charleroi is about the one I never did." Fitzsimmons embarked on a European tour to support the release in April 2016, visiting nine countries along the way. On October 21, 2016, he issued his first live album, titled
William Fitzsimmons Live. It showcases songs spanning the singer's career, recorded live at performances in Chicago, Amsterdam, and Paris. The record also features a cover of
Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere", recorded live in
Cologne, Germany, a video of which was published on October 19, 2016. Abby Gundersen (sister of singer-songwriter
Noah Gundersen, with whom Fitzsimmons toured in 2012), is featured on violin and vocals, and additional instrumentation is contributed by Jake Philips (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, and vocals) and Adam Popick (drums, synthesizer,
Rhodes, and acoustic guitar). In 2018, Fitzsimmons released the album
Mission Bell. This was followed in 2021 by
Ready the Astronaut and ''No Promises: The Astronaut's Return
. In 2022 and 2023, he published Covers, Vol. 1
and Covers, Vol. 2'', respectively. ==Awards==