Bill Williams

about

#1 Bill Williams (Richmond, Virginia, 28 February 1897 - Greenup, Kentucky, 6 October 1973) was a Kentucky based songster. Throughout the Sixties, it seemed there was one 'discovery' or 'rediscovery' of a blues singer after another; a succession of methodical searches, happy accidents and dramatic events which brought not only a number of legendary figures to life, but also revealed that the wealth of talent in the black traditions had been even greater than might have been supposed. Already though, the circumstances which brought about these discoveries seem to have passed and the events themselves slipped into history. Not many collectors would be sanguine enough to expect any major discoveries to occur now. And so, just to challenge any incipient pessimism, along comes Bill Williams. Bill Williams is not just the shadow of a tradition, a lone survivor whose longevity has preserved a relatively minor talent after his greater contemporaries have passed on, as is sadly the case in New Orleans today. On the contrary, he is a find of outstanding importance who makes a few more pieces fit into the complex jig-saw puzzle of blues history, and who is, in his own right, a musician of outstanding ability. Kentucky is a State which, on the evidence of records, has contributed relatively little to the blues, though in the groups of Clifford Hayes, Earl McDonald and the anonymous Whistler there was apparently a fairly strong jug band tradition, centred perhaps, in Louisville. A solita

top songs

albums

Classic Appalachian Blues from Smithsonian Folkways

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Classic African American Songsters from Smithsonian Folkways

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Smithsonian Folkways Classic Series Sampler

Handful

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Appalachian Blues

Low And Lonesome

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Classic Appalachian Blues

Blues, Rags And Ballads

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Too Late, Too Late Vol. 10 (1926-1951)

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Five Way Street: A Tribute to Buffalo Springfield

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The Late Bill Williams

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The Palpable Leprosy of Pollution

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