Jay Mayo "Ink" Williams (September 25, 1894 – January 2, 1980) was a pioneering
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
producer of recorded
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
music. Some historians have claimed that Ink Williams earned his nickname by his ability to get the signatures of talented African-American musicians on recording contracts,
[Barlow, William (1989). ''"Looking Up at Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture''. Temple University Press. pp. 131–132. .] but in fact it was a racial sobriquet from his football days, when he was a rare Black player on white college and professional teams.
[Whitman, Burt (19 Oct 1919)''22,000 See Brown Hold Harvard to a 7 to 0 Victory,'' Boston Herald. p. 17.] He was the most successful "
race record
Race records were 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s.Oliver, Paul. "Race record." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 13 Feb. 2015. They primarily contained race music, comprising various Af ...
s" producer of his time, breaking all previous records for sales in this genre.
Biography
Williams was born in
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Pine Bluff is the eleventh-largest city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County. It is the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combin ...
, the son of Millie and Daniel Williams. When he was seven years old, his father was
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
ed, and the family returned to his mother's hometown of
Monmouth, Illinois
Monmouth is a city in and the county seat of Warren County, Illinois, United States. The population was 8,902 at the 2020 census, down from 9,444 in 2010. It is the home of Monmouth College and contains Monmouth Park, Harmon Park, North Park, Warf ...
, where he grew up.
Williams attended
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, where he was a
track
Track or Tracks may refer to:
Routes or imprints
* Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity
* Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across
* Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...
star and outstanding
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player. He also served in the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. During the 1920s, he played professional football and was one of three black athletes (along with
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...
) to play in the fledgling
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
during its first year. His playing career lasted until 1926. During that span he played for the
Canton Bulldogs, the
Dayton Triangles, the
Hammond Pros
The Hammond Pros from Hammond, Indiana played in the National Football League from 1920 to 1926 as a traveling team.
History
The Pros were established by local businessman Paul Parduhn and Dr. Alva Young. Young, a boxing promoter and owner of ...
and the
Cleveland Bulldogs
The Cleveland Bulldogs were a team that played in Cleveland, Ohio in the National Football League. They were originally called the Indians in 1923, not to be confused with the Cleveland Indians NFL franchise in 1922. However, after team owner ...
. But his primary focus at this time was not the gridiron but the music industry.
After graduating in 1921, he moved to
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. Although he continued to play football until 1926, his first love was music, and in 1924 he joined
Paramount Records, which had recently begun to produce and market "race" records.
Williams became a talent scout and supervisor of recording sessions in the Chicago area, becoming the most successful blues producer of his time. Two of his biggest discoveries as recording artists were the singer
Ma Rainey
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ( Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and influential early blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of s ...
– already a popular live performer – and
Papa Charlie Jackson
Papa Charlie Jackson (November 10, 1887 – May 7, 1938) was an early American bluesman and songster who accompanied himself with a banjo guitar, a guitar, or a ukulele. His recording career began in 1924. Much of his life remains a mystery ...
, the first commercially successful self-accompanied blues singer. He recorded
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929)Some sources indicate Jefferson was born on October 26, 1894. was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues sing ...
,
Tampa Red
Hudson Whittaker (born Hudson Woodbridge; January 8, 1903March 19, 1981), known as Tampa Red, was a Chicago blues musician.
His distinctive single-string slide guitar style, songwriting and bottleneck technique influenced other Chicago blues gu ...
,
Thomas A. Dorsey
Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899 – January 23, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and Evangelism, Christian evangelist influential in the development of early blues and 20th-century gospel music. He penned 3,000 songs, a third of them ...
,
Ida Cox
Ida Cox (born Ida M. Prather, February 26, 1888 or 1896 – November 10, 1967) was an American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings. She was billed as "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues".Harriso ...
,
Jimmy Blythe,
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a gen ...
,
King Oliver
Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wr ...
, and
Freddy Keppard
Freddie Keppard (sometimes rendered as Freddy Keppard; February 27, 1890 – July 15, 1933) was an American jazz cornetist who once held the title of "King" in the New Orleans jazz scene. This title was previously held by Buddy Bolden and suc ...
.
He also managed a crew of songwriters, including
Tiny Parham.
![BlackPattiLabel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/BlackPattiLabel.jpg)
In 1927, he left Paramount and started
The Chicago Record Company, releasing jazz, blues and gospel records on the "
Black Patti" label.
One of these releases was The Down Home Boys' "Original Stack O' Lee Blues", believed to be the first recorded version of the song better known as "
Stagger Lee", and of which only one copy is now known to exist. Black Patti soon failed, and Williams moved to
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916.
History
From 1916
Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing prod ...
and its subsidiary label
Vocalion
Vocalion Records is an American record company and label.
History
The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...
, where he recorded
Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and
Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr (March 27, 1904 or 1905 – April 29, 1935) was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Mus ...
, among others.
However, after the
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...
, record sales plummeted, and Williams found new work as a football coach at
Morehouse College
, mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made")
, type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college
, academic_affiliations ...
in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
.
In 1934, Williams was hired as head of the "race records" department at
Decca Decca may refer to:
Music
* Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label
* Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group
* Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label
* Decca Studios, a recording facility in W ...
,
where he recorded such musicians as
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson ( ; born Mahala Jackson; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to t ...
,
Alberta Hunter,
Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904February 13, 1941) was an American blues guitarist and singer. Fuller was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists, rural African Americans, along with Blind Blake, Josh Wh ...
,
Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "the Honeydripper".
Career
Sykes was born the son of a musician in Elmar, Arkansas. "Just a little old sawmill town", Sykes said of his birthplace. The ...
,
Sleepy John Estes
John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an Am ...
,
Kokomo Arnold
James "Kokomo" Arnold (February 15, 1896 or 1901 – November 8, 1968) was an American blues musician. A left-handed slide guitarist, his intense style of playing and rapid-fire vocal delivery set him apart from his contemporaries. He got his ni ...
,
Peetie Wheatstraw
William Bunch (December 21, 1902 – December 21, 1941), known as Peetie Wheatstraw, was an American musician, an influential figure among 1930s blues singers.
Early life and career
William Bunch was the son of James Bunch and Mary (Burns) Bunc ...
,
Bill Gaither,
Bumble Bee Slim
Admirl Amos Easton (May 7, 1905 – June 8, 1968), better known by the stage name Bumble Bee Slim, was an American Piedmont blues singer and guitarist.
Biography
Easton was born in Brunswick, Georgia, United States. Several original sources con ...
,
Georgia White
Georgia White (9 March 1903 – c.1980) was an American blues singer, most prolific in the 1930s and 1940s.
Little is known of her early life, but it has been suggested that she was born in Sandersville, Georgia. By the late 1920s she was singin ...
,
Trixie Smith Trixie is a shortened form of the given names Beatrix or Beatrice or Patricia or adopted as a nickname or used as a given name.
Trixie may refer to:
People
* Trixie Friganza (1870–1955), American vaudeville performer and stage and silent fi ...
,
Monette Moore
Monette Moore (May 19, 1902 in Gainesville, Texas – October 21, 1962 in Garden Grove, California) was an American jazz and classic female blues singer.
Moore was raised in Kansas City, Missouri. She taught herself to play the piano in her ...
,
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe (born Rosetta Nubin, March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was an American singer and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her Gospel music, gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spir ...
,
Marie Knight
Marie Knight (née Roach; June 1, 1920 – August 30, 2009) was an American gospel and R&B singer.
Life and career
She was born Marie RoachSeamus McGarvey, "Marie Knight: I Hear Music In the Air", interview and article in '' Juke Blues'' magaz ...
,
Tab Smith
Talmadge "Tab" Smith (January 11, 1909 – August 17, 1971) was an American swing and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist. He is best remembered for the tracks "Because of You" and "Pretend". He worked with Count Basie, the Mills Rhythm Boys a ...
as well as pioneering the recording of the increasingly popular small group sound with such groups as
The Harlem Hamfats.
Williams was accused by some black musicians of a "dicty" attitude
– that is, acting as though he was a member of the white middle class. His efforts to refine the articulation of rural blues artists and polish their images were often met with hostility and misunderstanding. In addition to producing, he also managed some of the many artists he recorded, even sharing ownership of some songs as a co-writer. Songs on which he is credited as co-writer include "
Corrine, Corrina
"Corrine, Corrina" (sometimes "Corrina, Corrina") is a 12-bar country blues song in the AAB form. "Corrine, Corrina" was first recorded by Bo Carter ( Brunswick 7080, December 1928). However, it was not copyrighted until 1932 by Armenter "Bo Car ...
",
Nellie Lutcher
Nellie Rose Lutcher (October 15, 1912 – June 8, 2007) was an American R&B and jazz singer and pianist, who gained prominence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lutcher was most recognizable for her diction and exaggerated pronunciation a ...
's "Fine Brown Frame",
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as " the King of the Jukebox", he earned his high ...
's "Mop Mop", "Keep A Knocking"
Bert Mays and
Stick McGhee
Granville Henry "Stick" McGhee (March 23, 1918 – August 15, 1961) was an American jump blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known for his blues song "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee", which he wrote with J. Mayo Williams Note: Accord ...
's "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" among others.
Williams set up the Chicago Music Publishing Company (CMPC) as publisher for all the titles he recorded. The CMPC collected all royalties generated by the materials it held copyrights on, and was responsible for passing on some of the profits to the composer or performer. However, many successful artists that Williams recorded, including
Blind Blake
Arthur Blake (1896 – December 1, 1934), known as Blind Blake, was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He is known for recordings he made for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932.
Early life
Little is known of Blake's life. ...
and
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929)Some sources indicate Jefferson was born on October 26, 1894. was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues sing ...
, probably never received any royalties. Race record entrepreneurs knew that rural blues musicians were unfamiliar with copyright laws, and they further played upon the musicians' vulnerability by providing free liquor at recording sessions, hoping they would get drunk and sign their rights away.
[
After leaving Decca in 1945, Williams worked freelance and ran several small, independent labels.] From 1945 through 1949, he ran the Harlem label (based in New York City), and the Chicago, Southern, and Ebony label (based in Chicago); one of the artists he recorded was the young Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...
. After a period of freelance producing, he reopened the Ebony label in 1952 and kept it going through the early 1970s, recording Lil Armstrong
Lillian Hardin Armstrong (née Hardin; February 3, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader. She was the second wife of Louis Armstrong, with whom she collaborated on many recordings in ...
, Bonnie Lee
Bonnie Lee (June 11, 1931 – September 7, 2006) was an American Chicago blues singer known as "The Sweetheart of the Blues". She is best remembered for her lengthy working relationships with Sunnyland Slim and Willie Kent. David Whiteis, who i ...
, Oscar Brown
Oscar Brown Jr. (October 10, 1926May 29, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, playwright, poet, civil rights activist, and actor. Aside from his career, Brown ran unsuccessfully for office in both the Illinois state legislature and the U. ...
and Hammie Nixon
Hammie Nixon (January 22, 1908 – August 17, 1984) was an American harmonica player.
Life and career
Born Hammie Nickerson in Brownsville, Tennessee, he began his music career with jug bands in the 1920s. He is best known as a country blues ...
.[Clemson.edu](_blank)
As plans were being initiated to conduct interviews with Williams to gather his life story in 1980, he died in a Chicago nursing home.
Legacy
Williams was a member of the National Football Hall of Fame Association. In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame
The Blues Hall of Fame is a music museum located at 421 S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, the "Blues Hall of Fame" was not a physical building, but a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1 ...
.
References
External links
Biography
*
Charliegillett.com
(Special tribute to his life)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, J. Mayo
1894 births
1980 deaths
American football ends
American music industry executives
Record producers from Arkansas
Brown Bears football players
Canton Bulldogs players
Cleveland Bulldogs players
Dayton Triangles players
Hammond Pros players
Morehouse Maroon Tigers football coaches
People from Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Players of American football from Arkansas
African-American coaches of American football
African-American players of American football
Burials at Burr Oak Cemetery
20th-century African-American sportspeople