As I’ve indicated many times, when I’m not rifling through the bins at some specialty record store somewhere, I buy a lot of my music at bluebeatmusic.com.  Charlie Lange’s online operation is amazing, and the sheer volume of music available for purchase at his site is staggering.  And, it’s not just his blues selections, of which there are many thousands, along with other categories, too.  There, you’ll find blues broken down into many sub-categories, plus R&B, soul, zydeco, Cajun, jazz, rockabilly, surf, ska, doo-wop, reggae, and calypso.  If it’s available and worthy of being in your music collection, Lange’s online store no doubt carries it.

Recently, bluebeatmusic.com has been featuring in its “Featured Products” section a series of CDs on the British Red Lightnin’ label, an imprint that primarily offers blues rarities collections.  I have been gorging on these releases, and have been relishing playing them over and over again.  Many of these compilations haven’t seen the light of day on quite some time, and many haven’t ever been available on CD. 

Certain of the sets that I have recently acquired are those related to the Ralph Bass sessions from the 1970s when the noted producer undertook the task of recording many of Chicago’s working bluesmen, many of whom were on the fringes of the city’s scene, but not all.  Bass recorded sessions by Magic Slim (who only in 1975 played his first show outside of Chicago’s Black south side), Joe Carter, Lacy Gibson, and Lonnie Brooks.  These collections were released under the title I Don’t Give A Damn If Whites Bought It!” series, with each session seeing the light of day under a different volume number.  Another bluesman that Bass had the intellect to capture in 1977 was Willie Williams in a session that is co-credited with blues harmonica great Carey Bell, with works by Magic Slim also included on the disc I now have.  It represents Volume 3 in the recently-surfaced Red Lightnin’ CD series.  Since Willie Williams has not been profiled in these pages before, and since I have been immensely enjoying his music as of late, it’s time for a brief overview of Williams’ life and music career.

 Willie Williams came into the world in mid-March, 1922 in Lake Village, Arkansas, the county seat of Chicot County, an area in the far southeastern portion of the state.  Like many of the blues artists profiled here whose careers were on the peripheries of the music, quite little is known about his early formative years and familial relations.  What is known is that Williams’ first instrument-of-choice was the guitar, and by the 1930s his proficiency on the guitar was so developed as to allow him to be playing the local fish fries, frolic, picnics, and other social venues in his region.

However, and no pun intended, a change for Williams was afoot when he put musicmaking aside and took up dancing as his occupation, becoming an expert tap dancer who for roughly 13 years made a living cavorting with his skills across the Southern U.S.

However, dancing for Williams was not to be his lifelong profession, and at some juncture that is difficult to exactly pinpoint, he joined The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933-1942 with the goal, as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative, to supply manual labor work to younger men that was linked to the conservation and expansion of natural resources on rural areas that were owned by either federal, state, and local government entities.  The CCC’s goal with these jobs was that they could assist in relieving families who may have been having struggles locating employment during The Great Depression.

Shortly after the CCC’s work wound down in 1942, Williams made a profound decision to move northward to Chicago, Illinois in 1943.  It was in Chicago where Williams wanted to revive his music career, and he took up drumming as he felt this was his best option to make as quick an impact as possible on the city’s vibrant blues scene.  However, though he became somewhat established on the Chicago blues scene with his percussion work, and before he later made it his permanent home, he again moved in the mid-1950s, this time to St Louis, Missouri.  It was during this time that Williams brought together there the musicians who would comprise his first band, providing him further indoctrination into the big city blues realm, and all that came with it.  However, it was not to last in St. Louis, and eventually Williams was back in Chicago, this time on a permanent basis.

In Chicago, Williams was fortunate to prove his drumming skills sufficiently skilled enough to establish himself with the legendary Howlin’ Wolf’s group, a band that Williams worked with locally and out on tour through the initial part of the 1970s.  Williams’ hard-driving backbeat style of drumming was essential for the post-war blues Wolf and his crew were playing on the tough Chicago scene and on the road.

After working with Wolf, Williams’ husky vocals and professional drumming were noticed to the point to be able to garner him a coveted recording opportunity with Supreme Blues Records, a Chicago label.  His 1973 full-length LP entitled Raw Unpolluted Soul was a ten-song primer of timeless Chicago blues, one that produced his downhome jukebox preferred cut “Wine Headed Woman,” a song that developed into a national hit, and arguably one of the most favored Chicago blues tunes of the entirety of the 1970s. 

No doubt, William’s LP was vastly assisted in its success by the roster of blues all-stars who appeared with him, including Humbert Sumlin, Eddie Taylor, and Roy Lee Johnson providing stellar guitar work, Pinetop Perkins lending his considerable keyboard competencies, both Carey Bell and Little Mac Simmons offering ideal harmonica sounds, and Joe Harper framing everything with his bass runs.

Supreme Records supported the release of Raw Unpolluted Soul with a yellow label 45rpm that included “Wine Headed Woman”/“Detroit Blues.”  Plus, Supreme Records released a red label 45rpm that included “My Baby Is Gone”/Black Diamond Rattler.”  Finally, Supreme Records further supported the LP with a light blues label 45rpm that included “Ruthie Baby”/”38 Woman.”  Note: In the near recent past, the Essential Media label has re-released the Raw Unpolluted Soul collection with the addition of one extra cut.

There is also known to be one surviving acetate of Williams’ work from Audio Devices, Inc. out of Glenbrook, Connecticut that features “Shake It One Time For Me” and “Hot Pants All I Want.”  The acetate exists, at last known ownership, in the Gerard Homan collection (though this blogger believes that Homan passed away some time back).

Williams continued playing the Chicago taverns and joints, and produced the aforementioned Ralph Bass sessions in 1977.  Williams’ gruff voice and solid drumming made him a favorite act on the club scene.  Williams was certainly not shy about his capabilities, as he was fond of referencing himself as the finest blues drummer around.

In early December, 1988, however, Williams passed away.  It continues to startle this blogger after all these years the astonishing breadth of blues talent that existed in Chicago at one time, and how many of these truly talented blues artists operated at the edges of the music.  Williams was yet another of them.  If you haven’t before heard of Williams, you should acquire a copy of Raw Unpolluted Soul and take a hard, concerted listen to its elevated blues quality.  I suspect you will become a lifelong Willie Williams blues convert after doing so.