L.C. Williams born 12 March 1924

L.C. Williams (March 12, 1924 - October 18, 1960) was a blues singer, who was an important exponent, even if not very popular, of rhythm & blues and Texan jump blues of the period between the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. 

Williams was born in Millican, Texas, with the given name of L.C. which he later claimed stood for Love Crazy. Having moved to Houston at the age of 15 and taken up drums in addition to singing, he became acquainted with legendary blues guitarist Lightnin’ Hopkins and in late 1947 and throughout 1948 was backed by Hopkins on his initial sessions for Gold Star Records and billed as Lightnin’ Jr. on such stellar work as You Can Take It With You Baby. 

Unlike Goree Carter who’d initially been steered towards trying to sound like T-Bone Walker by his record company before forcibly taking control of his own musical direction and heading fully into rock, Williams was much more malleable. He was perfectly content to sing in the country blues styles of Hopkins even though he was also more than willing to unleash his rocking side when called upon when moving to Freedom Records, on which he sounded almost like an entirely different artist, one thirty years younger at that. 

Hopkins & Williams

His ultimate place in music history as a bluesman became all but assured when he scored his only national hit, a cover of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s Ethel Mae on his initial release for Freedom Records, though it was a song that was more uptown blues in style with its moaning horns than the down home variety he’d otherwise sang. But his legacy as a great “What If” in rock was provided by the flip side of that single, the storming “Shout Baby Shout” where he shed all blues inflections and showed he was every bit as cut out to be a rocker. 

                              

With the blues giving him greater commercial returns, as well as his friendship with Hopkins influencing his direction, he would only occasionally cross back into rock. Yet his vocal versatility meant that any time he did take another stab at it the results would be worth hearing. During a couple of years, Williams visited quite often the Houston studios, recording his brand of Texas blues in different settings, from the deep Country blues of his beginnings to the current fashionable swinging R&B, backed by the cream of the Houston session men, from pianists Lonnie Lyons and Elmore Nixon to saxophonists like Conrad Johnson through stellar guitarist Goree Carter. 

Ironically it was the increasing popularity of urban blues which helped to derail his momentum as the Hopkins brand of country blues was fast becoming archiac in the marketplace, confined to smaller and increasingly older pockets of fans around his home base. But with his youth and his ability to take on virtually any vocal persona and make it sound authentic he might’ve been one of the more exhilarating rock stars of the early 1950’s, or at the very least an intriguing hybrid act like Floyd Dixon, Peppermint Harris or Stick McGhee. Instead L.C. Williams largely slipped through the cracks of all musical idioms leaving behind tantalizing evidence as to his abilities which mostly went unappreciated. Sadly, after ten years in the industry, he never saw an album released under his name. 

Always a heavy drinker, he spent most of his time in recent years hanging around the corner of Holman and Dowling with wine-drinking buddies among whom he was known for being able to consume copious amomnts of sweet wine at 75c. for 4/5ths of a quart on any given day he happened to have $5. Since the onset of the tuberculosis he had pretty much given up singing and earned his casual living by playing drums for Lightnin and other dance hall groups. 

Two days before his death he insisted on getting out of his bed and singing for his common-law wife, Maggie Washington. On his knees and with his head buried in her lap he sang You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now. She tried to prevent him from exerting himself and told him, "Some other time I may want to hear you sing and you won't be here to sing for me." Next day he collapsed on Holman and Dowling, and was taken to the hospital where he died the following day. 

36-year old L. C. Williams died in the Houston Tuberculosis Hospital, of a haemorrhage from an abscessed lung, on October 18, 1960. He had been hospitalized for four months the previous winter during which the tuberculosis was arrested, but his persistent drinking and refusal to follow doctor's orders led to the fatal progress of the disease. 

L. C. was buried near his family home near Navasota, Texas. Neither of his closest friends, Lightnin who was in New York for concert appearances and Long Gone who was visiting his family in Louisiana, were able to attend the funeral and in fact word did not reach them until some days later. 

(Edited from Weenie Campbell, AllMusic & jukegh.blogspot)