Lew Williams born 12 January 1934

 

Lew Williams (born January 12, 1934, Chillicothe, Texas) is an American rockabilly singer and songwriter, known as the "Cab Calloway of rockabilly".

Williams began singing at age four, and moved with his family to Dallas at age eleven. He played in local clubs after graduating Adamson High School and entered Midwestern State University in 1952. However, a few months later he secured a job as a headliner for a radio program on Frederick, Oklahoma station KTAT.

The following year, Williams recorded demos at Jim Beck's recording studio and managed to get a single released on Flair Records in June 1953, but "I've Been Doin' Some Slippin' Too" was not a hit, and he did not release further material from these sessions. He sent some of the demos to Imperial Records, who offered him a publishing contract; Williams attempted to secure a recording contract as well but was unsuccessful initially.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imperial finally signed him as a recording artist in 1955, and his first releases came out in 1956. A few singles were issued in 1956 and 1957, with Jimmie Haskell producing and Barney Kessell on guitar; they did not sell and Williams was dropped early in 1957.

He graduated from the university in 1957 and devoted himself to songwriting full-time. He wrote material for Jimmy Hughes (with Mae Axton), Ferlin Husky, Floyd Cramer, Porter Wagoner, and Hoyt Johnson (de). After serving time in the Army, Williams took the pseudonym Vik Wayne for one final release on Dot Records, "The Girl I Saw on Bandstand".

Lew made his last appearance as a performer in January 1959 and then concentrated on song writing and talent management. A couple of months later, with a partner, Adrene Bailey, he opened
Le-Drene Productions, a recording studio and talent agency. They managed and booked artists and produced rock and roll stage shows, primarily for their radio station clients. They also had a touring event, The Battle of the Bands, which utilized local bands in each sponsoring station's broadcast area. And they produced a talent contest for their radio station clients, The Starmaker, which provided a recording contract to the winners in each contest.

After the partnership dissolved, Lew continued producing musical and other events for radio stations and their sponsors. Lew owned an interest in two more recording studios in Dallas but was out of the music business entirely by the end of 1963.

Being familiar with the growing African-American market, in 1964 he began producing the Miss Tan America talent and beauty pageant, and ran it for several years until desegregation reduced interest in such pageants.

Other business ventures included early forays into professional sports management back when it was far from the hugely lucrative business it is today. In the mid '60s he became involved in the mail order business and over time moved into the publishing field.

After Bear Family Records released some of his material in the 1990s, fed by the burgeoning interest in rockabilly in Europe and Japan, he made a comeback, appearing in Las Vegas in 2000 and touring widely thereafter until 2005. (Info mainly Wikipedia & lewwilliams.com)