Charles "Hungry" Williams

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Charles "Hungry" Williams
Rhythm and Blues
Occupation(s)Drummer, singer, songwriter
Years activec.1953 – 1978
LabelsChecker

Charles "Hungry" Williams (February 12, 1935 – May 10, 1986) was an American rhythm & blues drummer, best known for the innovative and influential technique he used on numerous recordings that came out of New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s.[1]

Early life

Williams was born at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 12, 1935, to Henry, Sr. and Beatrice (née Henderson) Williams.[2] The family lived in the 2nd Ward of New Orleans at 2522 Howard Avenue according to the 1940 U.S. Census. Henry, Sr. was listed as a construction laborer with the Works Progress Administration.[3] Charles Williams was the second son in the family that included siblings Henry Jr., Clifford, Lloyd, and Mary Alice. He said his mother sang a lot because she was church-going, and his father liked to dance. Henry, Jr. played guitar and younger brother Lloyd played drums. Williams reported that "ever since I been big enough to know myself I used to be always beating on something, tin cans or something like that."[2]

Education

At age eight or nine years old Williams was put into Municipal Boys Home on Franklin Avenue in New Orleans. His teacher there was

Peter Davis, called Mr. Dave by the boys. Davis taught Louis Armstrong to play the trumpet, and encouraged young Williams to take up the horn. "I used to tell him all the time, I say, 'Mr. Dave, I don't like to play trumpet, I want to play drums'. But he kept drivin' and drivin' it into my head, and I learned to play the trumpet a little bit. I didn't like it."[2] When Williams got out of the Municipal Boys Home he moved to McDonoghville, a neighborhood community of New Orleans on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. "That's where I was living, with my parents. After I got out of the home, I went back to my parents. There was a place called the Pepper Pot in Gretna, and that's how I met Professor Longhair. I used to go up there to dance and things, and Fess was playing up there. I'd worry Fess to death to sit in with him. At the time, he had a guy named Milton Stevens on drums. He was one of the best brush men to ever come out of New Orleans. And right after that, after Milton left, I think he got Honeyboy [Charles Otis], plus he had Papoose (Walter "Papoose" Nelson) on guitar. That's all- he only had three pieces. I finally convinced him to let me sit in. My timing and things was bad, but I did the best I could do."[2] Williams' musical education continued when he studied Fats Domino's drummer Cornelius "Tenoo" Coleman. Coleman, left-handed like Williams, also taught Walter "Popee" Lastie. Both Williams and Lastie would later play drums for Domino.[4] Williams said of Coleman, "I idolized the dude, I always wanted to play like him. But, ah, they made me a valet, Fats [Domino] made me a valet. And everytime I got a chance, I'd set up Tenoo's drums like an hour before the gig, and I would sit on his drums and practice before the gig started."[2]

Influences and technique

Williams told

Alvin "Red" Tyler said of Williams, "This guy had more natural ability than all of them put together. He was another musician that couldn't read a note, but as far as feeling, he would do things on the drums most drummers would say, 'How does he do that?' And it was only because he didn't know he wasn't supposed to do it. In fact Earl Palmer and I used to get off our job and go to the place Hungry was working at."[5] Palmer agreed, "Well, if you listen to the New Orleans drummers you find that they all played more bass drum than the average guy. Listen to “Hungry” play. He played a lot. You know, he sure could play."[7] Palmer wrote in his autobiography, “A guy we called Hungry, Charlie Williams, was a mother on drums, a guy who never knew how good he was.”[8]

Career

In the early 1950s Williams joined pianist Paul Gayten's band during the band's residency at the Brass Rail club on Canal Street. The band included sax man Lee Allen. Gayten later told author John Broven, "For a while I had one of the greatest drummers in the world- that was Hungry Williams."[5] Louisiana swamp pop idol Warren Storm was influenced by Williams' drumming during this time.[9] Warren joined fellow Abbeville swamp pop musician Bobby Charles Guidry in seeking out rhythm and blues artists.[10] Storm and Bobby Charles would visit the Brass Rail and listen to Paul Gayten's R&B band featuring tenor sax star Allen and- at different times- world-class drummers Palmer and Williams. “I think I picked up a lot of the New Orleans style of drumming and brought it down to Lafayette,” Storm said. Through the years he was to give a new dimension to the art of drumming in South Louisiana.[9] Learning from drummer Charles "Hungry" Williams, Warren formed a band in 1956, known as the Wee-Wows (later the Jive Masters).[11] From 1959 through 1965, Storm was session drummer for Jay Miller's studio band in Crowley, La., accompanying swamp-blues stars Slim Harpo, Lightnin' Slim, Lazy Lester, Lonesome Sundown and many other acts.[12]

Williams left Gayten's band in 1953. After working as a poker dealer on Rampart Street he began to sit in with the Club Tiajuana house band in 1954. The band included pianist

Dew Drop Cafe cook, Huey recalled, who noticed Williams' habit of ordering double portions and subsequently described the drummer as "hungry". Smith and other musicians followed the cook's lead, and Charles Williams became "Hungry" Williams.[13]

Williams first worked as a studio musician in June 1953 when Huey Smith cut "You Made Me Cry" and "You're Down With Me" for Savoy Records at J&M Studio. The cuts featured Smith on piano and vocals, Lee Allen on sax, Billy Tate on guitar, Roland Cook on bass, and Williams on drums.

A&R man for Chess Records and subsidiary Checker, arranged the session. Gayten set up another session in March 1957 when Williams recorded "Darling" backed with "So Worried". Three tracks from a June 1958 session "Rhythmatic Rhythm", "I Cried All The Way Home," and "What Can I Do" remained unreleased until 1984, appearing on Chess: New Orleans R&B.[15]

Studio musician

During the early 1950s, Earl Palmer was the foremost studio drummer in New Orleans. When Palmer departed for Los Angeles in 1957 Williams became the first choice studio drummer. Mac Rebennack, also known as Dr. John, explained, "I believe it was Eddie Mesner (of Aladdin Records) that offered Earl the job out on the West Coast, and he took it and cleaned up... But this caused a search (here) for a new drummer to take his place, which Charlie Williams eventually got that job. But for a while, they were trying out drummers, everybody from Edward Blackwell, who was too hip of a drummer and he was too jazz-influenced, to June Gardner, who was too straight. There was a search high and low; practically every session had a different drummer for a time. And finally Charlie Williams, who was the funkiest of them all, he just took it."[5] Williams agreed, "Before I knew it, man, they weren't using anybody else. Sometimes, man, I was in the studio six and seven days a week."[13]

Dave Bartholomew led the studio band at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio. As an engineer, Matassa worked with producers and arrangers Bartholomew and Allen Toussaint among others to craft what came to be known as "the New Orleans Sound" in the 1950s and 1960s.[16] The key to that sound was the group of studio musicians associated with Cosimo Matassa's studio that included Charles "Hungry" Williams on drums.[17]

Huey Smith recorded his hit "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" (#5 on Billboard's R&B chart and #52 on the pop chart) for Ace Records in June 1957. Williams added his distinctive polyrhythmic drumming to that track as well as to Smith's 1958 hit recording "Don't You Just Know It" backed with "High Blood Pressure" (#4 on the R&B chart and #9 on the pop chart).[13] In the late 1950s, Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns toured the South including Florida with the Silas Green Minstrel Show. In an interview with writer and funk drumming historian Jim Payne, Clayton Fillyau said the most important rhythmic lesson of his life was taught to him by the drummer in Huey "Piano" Smith's band The Clowns. Fillyau, the drummer who originated the funk beat in James Brown's band, said he saw Smith's show in Jacksonville and caught up with the band's drummer in his hotel room afterward. "Back then musicians were always in everybody's room playing", Fillyau remembered. They started jamming, and the older man, probably Charles "Hungry" Williams, showed him a little lesson in New Orleans drumming, taking him from standard stiff beat-keeping to secrets of the second line. Then he bore down, as if to say it all comes down to this, and told Fillyau, "Now use your imagination. Only thing you got to remember is, 'Where is one?' I don't care where you put it on those drums." Meaning you can hit it on the snare, bass, or cymbal. "Remember where the one is and you'll never lose time."[18] Fillyau acknowledged, "Now this (New Orleans) is where funk was really created! That's where funk originated."[19]

Williams continued to record and perform with Huey Smith and The Clowns. He was also part of the Ace Records studio session personnel that included Alvin "Red" Tyler on tenor and baritone sax, Lee Allen on tenor sax,

Mickey and Sylvia, Smiley Lewis, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters's, Art Neville, Bobby Mitchell, Frankie Ford, Allen Toussaint, Earl King, Bobby Charles, Chris Kenner, Roy Brown, Dave Bartholomew, Lee Allen, and dozens more.[21]

In the early 1960s, Williams lost his position as the first call studio drummer in New Orleans to John Boudreaux, and dropped out of the recording scene. He left for New York as the British Invasion eclipsed record sales and radio play in New Orleans.[1] Said Earl King, "He was one of those who drifted off and got into this whirl and that was it. He was around New York somewhere. Charles Williams, a hell of a drummer." New York City became Williams' adopted home as it had for New Orleans expatriate drummers jazz and R&B stickman Idris Muhammad and Charles “Honeyman” Otis, who played drums with Professor Longhair.[5] Williams' last known recording session was for Albert King's album New Orleans Heat, produced by Allen Toussaint for Tomato Records in New Orleans.[22]

Later years

In his later years Williams made few public appearances. His last was an impromptu jam session at New York City's Lone Star Cafe in April 1985. “I remember Dr. John was playing 'Iko Iko'", said Barbara Becker, a close friend to Williams, “and Charlie thought the drummer didn't have the beat right. So he just jumped up on the stage and took the sticks out of his hands and began to play."

Charles “Hungry” Williams died on May 10, 1986, in New York City after years of battling Paget's disease of bone, a crippling bone marrow disorder.[21]

Discography

New Orleans, La., December 14, 1955

  • "So Glad She's Mine" - Checker 831
  • "Mary Don't You Weep, Mary Don't You Moan" - Checker 831

New Orleans, La., March 1957

  • "Darling" - Checker 866
  • "So Worried" - Checker 866

New Orleans, La., June 1958 (Released 1984 Europe)

  • "Rhythmatic Rhythm" - Chess: New Orleans R&B - Chess- DET 205
  • "I Cried All The Way Home" - Chess: New Orleans R&B - Chess- DET 205
  • "What Can I Do" - Chess: New Orleans R&B - Chess- DET 205 [15]

References

  1. ^ a b "Charles 'Hungry' Williams". Rockabilly.nl. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Wavelength- Charles 'Hungry' Williams, November 1983". Scholarwoeks.uno.edu. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  3. ^ "Official 1940 U.S. Census Website". Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  4. ^ a b Coleman, Rick (2006). Blue Monday: Fats Domino And The Lost Dawn Of Rock 'N' Roll. Da Capo Press. p. 70.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Broven, John (1974). Rhythm And Blues In New Orleans. Pelican Publishing Company. p. 143.
  6. ^ a b Aukes, Antoon (2003). Second Line: 100 Years of New Orleans Drumming. C.L. Barnhouse Company.
  7. ^ Fish, Scott K. (October 21, 2015). "Earl Palmer on Motown, New Orleans, Los Angeles". Scottkfish.com. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
  8. ^ Palmer, Earl; Scherman, Tony (1999). Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story. Da Capo Press.
  9. ^ a b Broven, John (1983). South To Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous. Pelican Publishing Company. p. 247.
  10. ^ "American Routes Shortcuts Warren Storm". Wwno.org. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  11. ^ "Museum of the Gulf Coast- Warren Storm". Museumofthegulfcoast.org. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  12. ^ "Black Rockabilly Europe- Warren Storm". Rockabilly.nl. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  13. ^ a b c Wirt, John (2014). Huey "Piano" Smith And The Rocking Pneumonia Blues. Louisiana State University Press. p. 50.
  14. ^ Hannusch, Jeff (1985). I Hear You Knockin': The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues. Swallow Publications. p. 36.
  15. ^ a b McGrath, Bob (2000). The R&B Indies. Eyeball Productions.
  16. ^ "Legendary 'New Orleans Sound' Maker Dies". Usatoday.com. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
  17. ^ "The Rise and Fall of Ace Records: A Case Study in the Independent Record Business". The Business History Review. 11, No. 2: 231. 1990.
  18. ^ Smith, RJ (2012). The One: The Life And Music Of James Brown. Gotham Books.
  19. ^ Perchard, Tom (2014). From Soul To HipHop. Ashgate Publishing.
  20. ^ "Ace Records". Msbluestrail.org. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  21. ^ a b "Wavelength- Drummer 'Hungry' Williams Dies In New York City, October 1986". Scholarworks.uno.edu. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  22. ^ "Chart History: Albert King". Billboard.com. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
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