Andre Williams

Andre Williams was renowned as one of the coolest R&B acts of the 1950s and '60s, but he was later better known by many critics as "the godfather of rap. Born in Bessemer, Alabama, Williams' mother died when he was six years old and he was raised by his aunt before making his way to Detroit, where he won a talent contest organised by Fortune Records and began crafting his bawdy, half-spoken, half-sung style and writing songs for the independent company. He was soon nicknamed 'Mr Rhythm' and scored his biggest hit in 1956 when his low-slung bar-room classic 'Bacon Fat' reached number nine on the Billboard R&B Charts, before he took a job helping to develop artists in the early days of Motown Records, which included co-writing with a 13-year-old Stevie Wonder. Williams' other big signature tune 'Shake a Tail Feather' was originally recorded by Chicago act The Five Du-Tones in 1963, and was later covered by The Monkees, Ike and Tina Turner and James and Bobby Purify, before Ray Charles immortalised the stomping, party anthem when he performed it in the 1980 comedy film 'The Blues Brothers'. He was also signed to Chess Records in the late 1960s, continued to play the club circuit and later worked with Parliament-Funkadelic, Mary Wells and Bobby Bland, but struggled with drug addiction throughout the 1970s and ended up homeless. Alternative garage-punk outfits such as The Cramps and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion were other great admirers of his raucous showmanship and his rediscovery by indie rock crowds led to him touring with rock band The Countdowns and collaborating with Mick Collins of The Dirtbombs on album 'Silky' in 1998. There was also a 2008 documentary called 'Agile, Mobile, Hostile: A Year in the Life of Andre Williams' which captured him as a rather forlorn and troubled figure, but in his later years he sobered up and was in great form on his final album 'I Wanna Go Back to Detroit' in 2016. He continued to perform regularly and was inducted into the Michigan Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, but lost his battle with cancer in 2019 and died aged 82 in Chicago, Illinois.

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