R.I.P. Chicago soul great Ruby Andrews, 1947-2026

Sadly, soul singer Ruby Andrews of "Casanova" fame has passed away at the age of 79. She'll be greatly missed.

Remembering Dallas Good on his birthday

Remembering my old pal Dallas Good with a performance with Phonocomb, a couple of Sadies clips and one with Andre Williams.

Remembering Andre Williams on his birthday

Remembering R&B great Andre Williams with a few lesser known gems and a 2008 documentary you may have missed. 

Andre Williams vs. The Seminoles with Lowrock

Andre Williams cut a swell version of The Seminoles' doo wop gem "Open Your Eyes" but he couldn't top the original on Go-Gee.

Happy Birthday Dallas Good!

Remembering my old pal Dallas Good on what would've been his 50th birthday with some performance and interview clips.

B-Side Wins Again: Jo Ann Garrett

Check out Jo Ann Garrett's "Just Say When" – produced by Andre Williams, arranged by Charles Stepney & penned by Greg Perry!

LINKS

Chicago Reader Local soul sensation Jo Ann Garrett disappeared from the music biz in her 20s

Roland Alphonso & His Soul Brothers vs. Alvin Cash & The Crawlers

Roland Alphonso's ska classic "Dr. Ring Ding" was inspired by Alvin Cash's "Twine Time" hit co-written by Andre Williams. 

Norton celebrates July 4th with Stones tribute singles sale

Buy any three singles from Norton's Stones cover series and get the fourth free – geddit?

PLAY WITH FIRE JULY 4TH BLASTEROO 

All references to "no more hotdogs" and "greasy chicken" aside, we simply had to repurpose this smokin' snapshot of Keith and Brian playin' with fire for the first of our special July 4th declarations of independents, despite the fact that we're all celebrating the 245th anniversary of our split from Britain this weekend. 

And say, 28 years ago, Norton started asking bands that we dug from around the globe to cover fave early tunes from the Rolling Stones catalog. We ended up with 69 tunes by 69 artists spanning 34 seven inch singles, packaged with London-inspired labels and one-sided Londonesque company sleeves, hand screened by our genius artist pal Art Chantry!

This summer, Norton celebrates our 35th anniversary, and we'll be swinging bonus goodies to you all season long, starting today with our Norton Rolling Stones series offer.

So here's your holiday deal - purchase 3 singles and we will add a complimentary FREE fourth seven incher during July only, and while supplies last. As Mr Jones would ask, "Do you have them all?"

Find out which singles in the series are available and order them directly from Norton right here.  

Best wishes for a big. boss, beat-filled barbecue this weekend! – Norton crew

R.I.P. Andre Williams, 1936-2019

Sadly, singer/songwriter and hipster extraordinaire Andre Williams has passed away. Here are a couple of clips with The Sadies.

Start your new year greasy with Andre Williams!

Here's Andre performing "Hillbilly Child" with Denmark's PowerSolo, "Hey Country Girl" and "Ramblin' Man" 

Watch Andre WIlliams tear it up in Portland back in 2000

Check out Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams in gold lamé backed by The Flash Express 18 years ago. 

One For The Weekend: The Dramatics

Here's a rare Dramatics track off the Detroit OST penned by Sidney Barnes & Andre Williams.  

New Andre Williams album Don't Ever Give Up out now on purple vinyl

Yep, 80 and still shady! You can get Andre's new soul album from Pravda Records or digitally via  iTunes. 

The Five Dollars vs The Orchids

Andre Williams and his Five Dollars crew destroyed the Orchids version of I Can't Refuse in 1955.

Andre Williams enters Election 2012 fray with "Blame It On Obama" video

Andre Williams' Blame It On Obama single will be released digitally on September 11. His new studio album Life is due October 2 via Alive Naturalsound Records on CD as a digital download and black vinyl, as well as limited purple vinyl (l00 copies) as a mailorder exclusive.

A new *improved* Andre Williams album

If you recently picked up a copy of Andre Williams' oddly low-key Bloodshot release Hoods & Shades – which he calls "my folk album" – and were wondering what happened to the raunchy rhythm & booze-inspired frolic for which Mr. Rhythm is known and loved, evidently Andre was saving it up for a rematch with the Sadies. 

On May 15, Yep Roc (Outside in Canada) will release the Jon Spencer-produced Night & Day packed tight with the sort of lascivious humpin', bumpin' and thumpin' we've come to expect from Andre Williams. That's right, no Don Was involvement whatsoever. Phew! The label has thoughtfully made Andre's much-anticipated comeback album available for pre-order in various configurations which you can get directly from Yep Roc's site

Here's the press release: 

Canada’s finest live band, The Sadies, have reunited with explicit soul singer/cult legend Andre Williams for Night & Day on Yep Roc records. Night & Day is the result of sessions that began in 2008 at Key Club Studio in Detroit and captures Andre, then 70 years old and still using at the time, at his most raw, honest, and immediate. No filter. 

Andre is aided by a stellar cast of musical friends, dirty bluesers who have earned the trust of the ancient hustler, including Jon Spencer (who directed these sessions) and Matt Verta-Ray of Heavy Trash, Danny Kroha of Detroit’s own gutter-blues superheroes, The Gories, the unsinkable Mekon, Jon Langford, and of course, behind it all, The Sadies’ long-time line-up of Dallas Good on guitars and keys, his brother Travis Good on guitars and fiddle, Mike Belitsky on drums, and the mighty Sean Dean on the bass. The result is a raw, gritty slice of raunch rock that has attitude in spades and the hooks and playing to back it up.

The story starts at Key Club Studio, an old school jungle of analogue gear an hour outside of Detroit. Andre had just been sprung from a few days in the county cooler where he was being held on powder possession until his manager came to bail him out, a charge he would eventually beat, but his most recent stop in stir is reflected in "Your Old Lady," a song about sending a lover back to her man after he gets out of prison.

Throughout these sessions, Andre kept his rum buzz and his harangue on, and even if he showed up missing his bottom row of dentures -- he growls "I like my rum, coz I got no teeth, I let it flow over my gums" -- he was still able to drawl and percolate his continuing narrative of life in songs. In "America" he sings that "Living in America ain't no fun, better have some money or you'll be on the run, and it's a goddamn shame, without cash you're trash... the men are dogs, the women are hogs, but that ain't a bad thing... it's better than living in Africa."

Since these sessions, Andre was able to shake off some of his demons and has been living clean ever since. Says Andre, "I like where I am now. My family admires me now. I kinda wanna keep it like that."

Dallas Good writes in the liner notes for Night and Day that the first session "was good but we were worried for Andre. A couple years later, everything was different. He was sober and sharp. Agile, mobile and hostile. Night and Day. It wouldn't be fair to the new Andre (who I'd never met after working together for like, 12 years) to let the old Andre have this album. So we did more."

The resulting record is a modern classic, with Andre showing remarkable range -from heartbreak and bitterness to ribald humor, swagger, sleaze, fear and retribution, romance gone right and romance gone wrong, and all in the spirit of the sloppy fun that has made him a legend. Andre Williams represents as the first and last of a breed of pimp-rolling R&B wise men, the real deal, an authentic totem of the low-down and disreputable, a man who has played outside the law, and outside the record business, and somehow managed to come out not only alive, but with a fervent cult behind him.

Night and Day

1. I Gotta Get Shortly Out Of Jail

2. America (You Say "A Change Is Gonna Come")

3. The Seventy Year Old

4. Your Old Lady

5. Bored

6. Mississippi & Joliet
7. I Thank God

8. Don't Take It

9. One-Eyed Jack (listen)

10. Hey Baby!

11. I'll Do Most Anything For You

12. That's My Desire

13. Me and My Dog

Happy Birthday Otis Blackwell

Daddy Rollin' Stone - Otis Blackwell (1953)



Daddy Rollin' Stone - Derek Martin (1962)



Daddy Rollin' Stone - The Who (1965)



Daddy Rollin' Stone - Andre Williams (1996)

Andre Williams returns to Detroit

photo by Drew Reynolds

There's a new Andre Williams album called That's All I Need being released by Bloodshot on May 18 but it's not his new recording with The Sadies overseen by Jon Spencer. Evidently Andre's much-anticipated Sadies reunion set is finished and ready to go but they're still looking for a suitable label home for it. So while the backroom wheeling and dealing continues, the other Andre studio set, which the fabulous Mr. Rhythm put down in his old Motor City stomping grounds, is being issued by Bloodshot to placate Andre addicts jonesing for new joints.

That's All I Need was produced by Outrageous Cherry singer/guitarist Matt Smith who enlisted his regular crew of D-Town delinquents including drummers Dave Shettler (The Sights) and Michael Alonso (Electric Six), bassist Troy Gregory (Flotsam and Jetsam, Prong) and guitarist Eric Villa (Valentinos). If some of those names sound familiar it's because Smith used largely the same cast to cut Nathaniel Mayer's two not-so-hot albums for Alive. That's certainly cause for concern but we can only hope that Smith and company have learned something from the mistakes made on Mayer's albums. Hey, it could happen.
To his credit, Smith had the good sense to hire certified Detroit guitar ace Dennis Coffey to play the tricky parts so that's a big plus although it's unfortunate Smith couldn't manage to get Coffey's fellow Funk Brothers Bob Babbitt and Ray Monette in on the action. Those interested in picking up That's All I Need should note that Bloodshot's limited edition vinyl version of the album includes a digital download option and two bonus tracks. And if you pre-order now through Bloodshot's site (see link below) you get a free 11"x17" colour poster!

LINKS
Andre Williams myspace
Bloodshot Records http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/thats-all-i-need
Outrageous Cherry myspace

Andre's Back In Ass-kicking Action

Despite the dearth of advance press, Andre Williams' post-rehab return to Toronto's Legendary Horseshoe Tavern with the Sadies last night turned out to be a spectacular triple-bill triumph to the delirious delight of the packed house.
Resplendent in red, the 73-year-old mack daddy of raunchy R&B shook, shimmied and shouted in tip-top condition suggesting that performing alongside two gorgeous go-go gals like Vivian and Veronica Verre (pictured) was a much safer and perhaps even more effective stimulant than booze or blow. Even though the Sadies had only a 45-minute rehearsal with Williams to pick out appropriate songs for the night, you'd never know it from the seamless, well-paced set that built beautifully to a storming crescendo with a raging rip through Bad Motherfucker that had the whole brew-hoisting crowd shouting the tag-line in unison.
Silly grins could be seen pasted on people's faces all over the club, including those of local celebs in attendance Ron Sexsmith, Dan Burke, Craig Daniels, producer Peter Moore, OPM label boss Jan Haust, Neil Young's brother Bob Young (who was climbing on the railing to get a better view) and ace shutterbug Shadowy Don Pyle who took time out from assembling his highly-anticipated book of punk-era photographs to document the memorable event. You can thank Don for kindly supplying the snazzy accompanying image above.
Can't wait for Andre's new album with the Sadies and Heavy Trash which, from all reports, is gonna be a doozy. In the meantime, check out Andre's new work of fiction Sweets And Other Stories (Kicks Books) which you can read all about in the post from Satuday (November 14).

Here's a clip of Andre and the Sadies performing a magnificently menacing version of I Can Tell at the Casbah in Hamilton, Ontario on the following night.

Andre Williams w/ The Sadies @ the Casbah 11/20/09

Andre Williams' novel turn

 Along with Andre Williams' considerable skills as a producer, arranger and house-wrecking showman, we all knew reckless R&B raconteur was a talented tunesmith as well. But evidently the composer of such timeless classics as Bacon Fat, Jail Bait, Shake A Tail Feather, Pig Snoots and I Want To Be Your Favorite Pair of Pajamas wasn't content with just writing dancefloor destroyers so the wildly creative Williams decided to mark his 73rd birthday with the publication of his first book of fiction, Sweets and Other Stories.
The swankly designed old school Signet tall-style paperback is the first release of Kicks Books, an off-shoot of Norton Records which is currently celebrating it's 30th anniversary as a proudly independent label. It was actually Norton co-founder and dime-store novel aficionado Miriam Linna who suggested to Williams the potential therapeutic benefits of writing prose during his recent 42-day stint in rehab.

Williams took the advice and wrote what he knew. True to salacious form, it's a terrifically trashy bit of streetwise pulp fiction – more Donald Goines than Iceberg Slim – populated by pimps, hookers, thugs, snitches and dope-dealers, just the sort of sleazy characters Williams understands implicitly from his own hard hustling life in the music biz. Although much of the action is set in Chicago, where Williams currently resides, don't count on Sweets and Other Stories getting big upped on Oprah's Book Club. But who knows, maybe Quentin Tarrantino will buy the film rights and keep Andre in vintage Cadillacs for years to come.

Of course, recording and performing music remains Andre's main focus. He's just finishing up a new Jon Spencer-produced album with the ever-fabulous Sadies  providing musical support. The Sadies will be joining Williams to road test some of the new material at the Horseshoe (370 Queen West) in Toronto on Thursday, November 19 with Bloodshot Bill and Catl opening. Tickets are $15 advance, $18 at the door and available from Ticketmaster, Rotate This, Soundscapes and the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern.