Clarence Williams (1898 - 1965)
Clarence Williams was both an artist and an entrepreneur. Highly
energetic and adept at all sides of the music business from
writing, publishing, and performing to managing other artists, he
worked with the most famous early female blues singer, Bessie
Smith. The songs he wrote were popular across the United
States; some of his compositions in the Dixieland style have
become classics.
Williams was born on the outskirts of New Orleans, in
Plaquemine, Louisiana, on October 8, 1898. He was of Choctaw
Indian and Creole heritage. His father was a bass player who
made his living as a hotel owner, and as a child, Williams began
his musical education performing in the family hotel and singing in the streets. When he
was twelve, he left home and joined Billy Kersands's famous minstrel show as a singer.
Shortly thereafter, he became the troupe's master of ceremonies.
On Williams's return to New Orleans, he started a suit- cleaning service for the many
style-conscious piano professors in that city. He began playing piano in the honky-tonks
of New Orleans's Storyville. In this legendary red-light district, Williams, a man not
noted for his modesty, admitted that he was overshadowed by Tony Jackson, the
influential rag pianist who wrote Pretty Baby. Williams also played professionally with
Sidney Bechet and Bunk Johnson, two future jazz stars.
He invested much of his time in learning new material, even writing to New York for the
latest songs. During this period, he also managed his own cabaret, and wrote his first
money-making composition, Brownskin, Who You For?, recorded on Columbia Records.
The $1,600 check he received for it in 1916 was, according to Williams, the most money
anyone in New Orleans had ever made for a song.
Around 1915, he and Armand Piron started a New Orleans-based publishing company,
which was in business for several years. Piron was a bandleader whose most famous
composition was "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate". In 1917, he and
Williams put together a vaudeville act, and they achieved moderate success with Piron
on the violin and Williams playing piano and singing.
While touring, they became acquainted with W. C. Handy, who helped them place some
of their compositions in Memphis music stores. When an important concert in Atlanta
was moved from a black auditorium to a white one because so many whites wanted to
attend, Handy asked Williams and Piron to join him to strengthen the program. The
concert was a triumph, and the New Orleans duo stopped the show.
About this time, Williams claimed to be the first songwriter to use the word jazz on a
piece of sheet music, and his business card began touting him as "The Originator of Jazz
and Boogie Woogie." Williams's writing partner on some songs during the late teens was
Spencer Williams (no relation). Their "Royal Garden Blues" became a jazz classic in the
Dixieland style.
Anticipating the exodus of talent from New Orleans to the northern cities spurred on by
the closing of Storyville, Williams moved to Chicago in 1920. The music store he opened
near the Vendome Theater proved so lucrative that he eventually owned three music
stores in the city, but Williams did not confine his energies to mere proprietorship. 1920
was the year Mamie Smith recorded Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues" and "It's Right
Here For You". When the public got their first hearing of a black woman's voice singing
the blues, they wanted more, and Williams's entrepreneurial skills enabled him to profit
from this next phase in the entertainment business: selling recordings of black female
blues singers.
In 1921, Williams married blues singer, Eva
Taylor. She was one of the first female singers
heard on the radio, and her performances and
style influenced many future vocal stars. Among
the songs she and her husband collaborated on
and performed together was May We Meet
Again, written "in memory of our beloved
Florence Mills," one of the most popular black
stage entertainers of the time.
Williams understood the potential selling-power
of New Orleans music in the North, and since
New York City was the center of the music publishing business, he sold his Chicago
music stores in 1923 and moved there. He rented space in the Gaiety Theater Building at
1547 Broadway, which was already established as an office building for other
African-American entertainers including Bert Williams, Will Vodery, Pace and Handy,
and Perry Bradford, and in February of that year, he and Bessie Smith went to Columbia
to record her first sides.
The first two releases featured Smith accompanied by Williams on piano; one, "Gulf
Coast Blues", was even composed by Williams and published by his company. Williams
accompanied Smith on many of the songs she recorded during that highly productive year
and claimed writer's credit on such numbers as "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home"
and "T'ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do". It should be noted, however, that Williams had a
reputation for claiming credit for works he did not compose entirely on his own, and the
origins of many of these songs remain in question.
He was also less than honest with the singer. He convinced Smith that she was under
contract to Columbia. In reality, she had signed a contract naming him as her manager,
and he was pocketing half of her recording fee. This episode came to a swift conclusion
when Smith and a boyfriend made a surprise trip to Williams's office, demanding that she
be released from that obligation and allowed to sign directly with Columbia.
Not all of his activities were so self-serving. Willie "The Lion" Smith, who claimed that
Williams was the first New Orleans musician to influence jazz in New York, also credited
Williams with helping other African-American songwriters like himself, James P.
Johnson, and Fats Waller. From 1923 to 1928, Williams was the artist and repertoire
director for Okeh Records, and from this powerful position he was able to seek out and
develop new talent. During this time, he organized numerous sessions which advanced
the careers of many early jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. He
also employed a number of other jazz musicians including Don Redman, King Oliver, and
Coleman Hawkins.
A shrewd businessman, Williams was in a position to help new artists in many ways. He
could arrange their recording sessions, supply their material, publish their compositions,
and manage their business affairs. He was also capable of taking advantage of the
unknowing performer, and did so, probably with the same regularity as white agents, who
were not known for their even- handed dealings with artists regardless of their race.
Between 1923 and 1937, Williams proved to be a prolific producer, organizing at least
two recording sessions a month and recording over 300 sides under his own name. It was
common for him to record with one company and, if he didn't like the results, go across
town and record the same session for another company under a different name. The
Dixie Washboard Band and Blue Grass Foot Warmers are but two of the pseudonyms he
used in his pursuit for the best possible session.
In 1927, Williams tried his hand at musical theater. He wrote the book and music for and
also produced the show Bottomland, which starred his wife, Eva Taylor. The show was
not a critical success. However, Williams's New York publishing company prospered,
continuing to do business until 1943 when he sold its catalog of over 2,000 songs to
Decca for a reputed $50,000.
From the late thirties until he lost his sight after being hit by a cab in 1956, Williams
spent most of his time composing. He died in Queens, New York, on November 6, 1965.
During his lifetime, he had been a composer, pianist, vocalist, record producer, music
publisher, and agent. He may not have been the inventor of jazz, but he was influential
enough in his day to be forgiven that one exaggeration.
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