[Dixielandjazz] Paul Williams Obit

[Stephen Barbone]

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Not sticttly OKOM but Paul Williams started out as an OKOM jazz
musician. Note had he made the "Big Bucks", and the take on Hucklebuck
being adapted without credit from Charlie Parker's "Now's The Time". Did
a couple of jazzers start Rock & Roll?

October 1, 2002  New York Times

Paul Williams, 87, Rock Pioneer, Is Dead

By PETER KEEPNEWS

Paul Williams, a saxophonist and bandleader whose 1948 recording of "The
Hucklebuck" was an important precursor of rock 'n' roll, died on Sept.
14 in New York City. He was 87.

Released early in 1949 on the Newark-based Savoy label, "The Hucklebuck"
(it was hyphenated on the original record label) was No. 1 on the
rhythm-and-blues charts for 14 weeks. A shuffle-blues instrumental built
around the sound of a furiously honking saxophone, it helped give
impetus to the raucous variant of rhythm and blues that evolved into
rock 'n' roll. It also gave Mr. Williams an identity: from 1949 until
the end of his career, he was billed as Paul Hucklebuck Williams.

Although closely associated with Mr. Williams, "The Hucklebuck" was
written by Andy Gibson, and, many jazz historians say, adapted without
credit from Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time," which Savoy recorded in
1945.

Mr. Williams began his career as a jazz musician but became part of rock
history on March 21, 1952, when he was on the bill at the Moondog
Coronation Ball, a show at the Cleveland Arena promoted by the disc
jockey Alan Freed and often called the first rock concert. As it
happened, Mr. Williams's band was the only act that performed that
night: gate crashing and overcrowding led fire marshals to stop the show
shortly after it began.

Paul Williams was born on July 13, 1915, in Lewisburg, Tenn. He began
his career in Detroit, where Herman Lubinsky, the owner of Savoy
Records, heard him at a nightclub and sent the producer Teddy Reig to
audition him.

"At the time I was playing mostly alto and sometimes clarinet," Mr.
Williams said later. "Teddy wanted me to play baritone. I had a
baritone, but I very seldom played it. And he had very definite ideas
about what I should do. He wanted me to honk. He kept telling me not to
play a whole lot of notes. He kept saying: `Honk! Honk! Honk!' "

Mr. Williams had a number of hits for Savoy between 1947 and 1951, but
"The Hucklebuck" was by far the biggest. In the early and middle 1960's
Mr. Williams was music director for the singers James Brown and Lloyd
Price and did session work for Atlantic Records. After opening a talent
agency in New York in 1968, he rarely performed again.

He is survived by two sons, Earl and Eric, and a daughter, Erin.