Zephire Andre Williams (November 1, 1936 – March 17, 2019) was an American R&B wildman whose career as a singer, songwriter, producer, and A&R man stretched from the '50s into the new millennium.
Born in Bessemer, Alabama, Zephire “Andre” Williams escaped rural poverty for the bright lights of Detroit around 1950. Motor City was booming and Williams, aware he lacked a voice but determined to succeed as a vocalist, created a sing-speak style mixing humour and innuendo with the ruling R&B and doo-wop musical styles of the time. Some have pointed to this vocal delivery being one of the starting points for rap music.
When Williams bumped into an aspiring mogul Berry Gordy in the barber’s, he accepted a job offer. Gordy hired Williams not as an artist but to produce and develop Motown’s new signings. He did so but disliked Gordy’s autocratic manner, and left for Chicago, where he did a similar job at One-derful. In 1963, he co-wrote
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Shake a Tail Feather for the Five Du-Tones, a minor hit when released but almost immediately an R&B standard (it was most famously performed by Ray Charles in the film The Blues Brothers).
The next year, he wrote the R&B and pop hit Twine Time, for Alvin Cash, and throughout the decade issued his own records while writing and producing for everyone from Mary Wells to Parliament-Funkadelic to Bobby “Blue” Bland. A call from Ike Turner inviting Williams to work with him in Los Angeles – Shake a Tail Feather was a staple of Ike & Tina’s live set – proved fateful: Williams picked up Turner’s cocaine habit and ended up homeless and addicted.
In 1996, he released Mr. Rhythm, which featured new renditions of his old tunes from the "Jail Bait" era. He changed his style with 1998's Silky. In 1999, he began his relationship with Bloodshot Records by recording a country album with The Sadies, entitled Red Dirt. In 2000, Williams released The Black Godfather, with two songs backed by The Dirtbombs. Williams toured Europe in 2001 (with Green Hornet as backing band), 2005 and 2006 (with the Marshall Brothers).
From August to November 2006, he had a short European tour, ending in Switzerland. In early 2008 he undertook a European tour with The Flash Express. At the pre-gig interview in London he was found a broken man: Andre drank Bacardi the way most of us drink tea. He remained droll but that evening’s performance, with a band only marginally less awful than the previous time, found him slurring and staggering.
Over those years, Chicago’s Bloodshot Records issued several albums by Williams, most pretty hasty efforts, but 2012’s Hoods and Shades, produced by noted Detroit guitarist Dennis Coffey, was a solid affair. During an interview Williams was sober and happy to reflect on his life. He’d finally got control of his royalties for Shake a Tail Feather, calling that song his greatest creation. In 2012, Williams was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
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Andre Williams died March 17, 2019, while in hospice care in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 82 after being diagnosed with colon cancer two weeks earlier. He had reportedly been battling several other health issues, including seizures and strokes, though he was “committed to trying to sing and record again.”
(Edited from Wikipedia & The Guardian)