J Mayo Williams – One
in a Million.
Early American
Football and Record Industry Pioneer.
 |
Williams in his
college football days. |
Jay Mayo Williams was one of the very
few African American recording company executives before World War II and was
working for several classic labels, among them Paramount, Vocalion,
Brunswick and creating his own influential labels Black Patti and Ebony.
Williams attended the Ivy League College Brown University, where he was
a track star and All-American football player. To say Williams achieved more
than most in many a lifetime would be an understatement, but he managed it in Jim
Crow America.
Jay Mayo “Ink” Williams, who rarely
used his first name or initial, was born on July 25, 1894, in Pine Bluff,
Arkansas. After his father, Daniel Williams, was killed in a railway station
shooting, his mother, Millie, moved the family to Monmouth, Illinois,
where she had originally married her husband in 1885. Mayo Williams grew up in
Monmouth and excelled as a high school athlete, winning a state championship in
the 50-yard dash and taking second place in the 100-yard dash in 1912. He was
part of the Monmouth High Maroons football squad that made it to the
Illinois state championship in 1910. Williams excelled in sports and academically,
he applied and was accepted into Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in
1916. He continued to perform well on the football field, playing throughout
his college years and making the New York Times All-America third team in 1920. He was also a New England track champion at the 40-yard
distance. Williams's college career was interrupted in 1918 by a stint in the
U.S. Army, where he served as a private. An outstanding scholar and athlete, he
graduated from Brown in 1921 with a major in philosophy.
Williams joined former Brown teammate
Fritz Pollard (First African American NFL player, Coach and Inductee of
the NFL Hall of Fame) along with Paul Robeson (hugely popular singer and
Broadway performer) as members of the Hammond Pros. His playing career
lasted until 1926.
In 1922, Paramount Records, based in Wisconsin just outside of Chicago,
became the second company to market "race" records, following Okeh
from St. Louis. Paramount became famous for its "race" record series
and if any one person could take credit for the success, it was Mayo Williams.
label, headquartered in Port
Washington, Wisconsin. So novel was his position that crowds of children
who had never seen a black person before dogged him from the railroad station
to the label's office, which was headquartered in the Wisconsin Chair
Company's building.
As an educated man dealing largely with artists playing rural music,
Williams, whose musical tastes ran toward more cultured performers like Paul
Robeson, put aside his musical and cultural differences for Paramount. He did
have an appreciation for the blues that he picked up from his mother as a
child, and he felt the style of music was a valuable part of the African-American
community.
By today's standards, it would be unlikely to find a producer who doesn't
socialize with talent. But Williams' "high" social status and
introverted personality may have contributed to his tendency to do just this.
He also maintained that keeping all artists at an equal distance allowed him to
avoid any views of favouritism.
Despite his inexperience, Williams, whose side career in the NFL was never
discovered by Paramount executives, was the most successful "race"
producer of his time. About half of the approximately 40 artists he recorded
for Paramount sold well -around 10,000 copies -- for the company to continue to
record more artists.
Williams established an office on Chicago's South Side, away from the Wisconsin
headquarters of Paramount. His location, in the heart of Chicago's "stroll"
or African-American entertainment district, allowed him to travel to clubs or
cabarets within a few blocks to recruit new talent. He also solicited public
suggestions for talent in African-American newspapers like "The Chicago
Defender."
Williams then talked his way into the
post of manager of the Chicago Music Company, Paramount's publishing
arm. The company paid him poorly and steadfastly refused to give him raises or
promotions. But the situation was ideal from a musical point of view: Williams
rented space at 36th and State Streets on Chicago's South Side, close to the
city's vibrant black entertainment district, and his secretary, Althea
Dickerson, gave him tips about up-and-coming blues acts. He had a good deal
of autonomy from Paramount's white top executives, and from their point of view
(although not that of the performers he signed) he did well: he acquired the
copyrights for much of the music he recorded simply by paying the singer a
token sum (often between five and twenty dollars) and making it clear that the
performer's Paramount recording session depended on his or her going along with
the deal.
Edged out of his position by one of Paramount's
white salesmen, who had actually discovered Jefferson, Williams started his own
label in 1927. It was officially called the Chicago Record Company, but
on the label, he used the name Black Patti, after the black opera
singer M. Sissieretta Jones (known as the Black Patti).
Black Patti 78 rpm releases in the blues, jazz, and gospel genres never sold in
large numbers, but are now among the most prized items in the record collecting
field.
Perhaps most importantly, the label issued the Down Home Boys' "Original
Stack O' Lee Blues." This recording, of which only a handful exist
today, is one of the oldest surviving recordings of the Stagger Lee Blues. A
black folk ballad, the song tells the story of how Stagger Lee shot Billy Lyons
over a Stetson hat. Groups ranging from The Grateful Dead to The Clash
have covered the song, and the owner of the only known Black Patti pressing
still in existence has turned down offers of up to $20,000 for his copy. The record
is proudly owned and jealously guarded by legendary collector Joe Bussard.
Despite the future influence the label would have on music, Black Patti's sales
figures weren't as profitable as hoped, and after just seven months of
operation, the label folded in September of 1927. Today, Black Patti's output
of 55 records has become some of the most sought-after 78s of the period.
Record sales plunged during the Great Depression, and from 1931-1933
Williams returned to football as head coach at the historically black Morehouse
College in Atlanta.
He returned to music in 1934 when the
British label Decca launched its American subsidiary and put Jack
Kapp in charge. Kapp called Williams to New York , signing on as
a talent scout for Decca Records and its legendary 7000 series of
"race" records. By this time, the blues was firmly entrenched in
popular music and only a few labels, including Decca, issued the records
marketed specifically to a black audience.
While employed by Decca, Williams produced the recordings for future gospel
star Mahalia Jackson, as well as former Paramount stars like Trixie
Smith and Blind Joe Taggart.
Williams stepped into the studio with boogie piano acts like Peetie
Wheatstraw and Bumble Bee Slim. He scored a hit with bluesman Kokomo
Arnold's "Milk Cow Blues,"
Upon retiring from Decca in 1946, Williams struck out on his own with Ebony
Records.
The new blues
styles that began to arise in the South and West during and after World War II finally diminished Williams's influence, although he had
one last flash of brilliance when he recorded the young guitarist Muddy
Waters for his Ebony label in the late
1940s before his long association with Chess Records. Williams started
several small labels after the war, eventually selling off rights to some of
his copyrights and returning to Chicago. Williams established a South Side
office for Ebony  |
One of Williams later labels.
|
and continued to run his
one-man company into the 1970s. In all, he spent nearly 50 years in the business.
and continued to work almost until the end
of his life. He died on January 2, 1980.
 |
| Williams in his latter years. |
A general underestimation of his influence on the blues tradition has
resulted from his own refusal to assert his own importance in interviews he
gave late in life. According to his biographers, he did, however, tell one
interviewer, "I've been better than 50 percent honest, which in this
business is pretty good."His successes were recognized posthumously in 2004 when the Blues
Foundation acknowledged his contributions to the genre with his induction
into the Blues Hall of Fame.
References
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/j-mayo-ink-williams-5411/
https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/williams-j-mayo
https://www.allaboutbluesmusic.com/j-mayo-williams/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Mayo_Williams
http://ivy50.com/blackhistory/story.aspx?sid=12/26/2006
