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| Joe Williams, in 1998 |
Today we
celebrate singer Joe Williams’ one hundredth birthday. Joe was born Joseph
Goreed on December 12, 1918 in Cordele, Georgia. He grew up in Chicago, paid
his musical dues with a number of area swing bands, and joined the Count Basie
Orchestra in 1954. Joe started a solo career in 1961 which lasted four plus
decades. Along the way he became close friends with Milt Fillius Jr., an avid
jazz fan and a 1944 graduate of Hamilton College. Together Joe and Milt
launched an oral history project, an effort to gather extemporaneous life
stories of jazz musicians, their spouses, writers, producers, and jazz aficionados.
This collaboration resulted in what is now called the Fillius Jazz Archive, and
I am proud to be called the Joe Williams Director. Our 350+ video interviews
are now posted on the Fillius Jazz YouTube Channel.
To
celebrate Joe’s one-hundredth birthday we are posting a compilation of
interview excerpts which were previously unpublished. Joe’s commentary is
intertwined with anecdotes from his accompanist Norman Simmons, his manager
John Levy, and Basie band members Bill Hughes and John Williams. These excerpts
and outtakes were originally captured for the 1996 concert documentary called Joe Williams: A Portrait in Song, a film
commissioned by Hamilton College and produced by Burrill Crohn.
We invite you to view this compilation here, and hope you enjoy the magic of
Joe Williams all over again.
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