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Sunday, October 14, 2012
Tishomingo Blues (Spencer Williams) - Bill Westcott
Spencer Williams (October 14, 1889 – July 14, 1965) was an American jazz and popular music composer, pianist, and singer. He is best known for his hit songs "Basin Street Blues", "I Ain't Got Nobody", "Royal Garden Blues", "I've Found a New Baby", "Everybody Loves My Baby", "Tishomingo Blues", "Careless Love", and many others.
Spencer Williams was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was educated at St. Charles University in New Orleans.
Williams was performing in Chicago by 1907, and moved to New York City about 1916. After arriving in New York, he co-wrote several songs with Anton Lada of the Louisiana Five. Among those songs was "Basin Street Blues" which would become one of his most popular songs and is still recorded by musicians to this day.
Around the time of World War One he co-composed the song "Squeeze Me" with Fats Waller.
Williams toured Europe with bands from 1925 to 1928; during this time he wrote for Josephine Baker at the Folies Bergères in Paris. Williams then returned to New York for a few years. In 1932, he moved to Europe for good, spending many years in London before moving to Stockholm in 1951 where he spent most of the rest of his life. Williams returned to New York shortly before his death in Flushing, New York on July 14, 1965.
His hit songs include "Basin Street Blues", "She'll Be Comin Around That Mountain", "I Ain't Got Nobody", "Royal Garden Blues", "Mahogany Hall Stomp", "I've Found a New Baby", "Everybody Loves My Baby", "Squeeze Me", "Shimmy-Sha-Wobble", "Boodle Am Shake", "Tishomingo Blues", "Fireworks", "I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly Roll", "Careless Love", "Arkansas Blues", "Paradise Blues", "When Lights Are Low","Dallas Blues", and "My Man o’ War".
Williams was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970
William Westcott is a pianist, composer, arranger, musicologist and music theorist specializing in African-American and classical music of the 20th century. A piano player from the age of eight, William “Bill” Westcott studied blues piano with “Little Brother” Montgomery, a major blues-recording artist of the 1930s and of the later blues revival, alongside his formal university training in music. This experience confirmed him in his life-long interest in early blues and jazz piano styles. While working occasionally as a soloist and accompanist in classical performance, Professor Westcott has performed as a band member in various rock, Dixieland, country and western, ragtime, jazz and blues ensembles for more than 40 years. He has appeared as pianist and singer in Canadian and American music festivals as well as Canadian radio and television broadcasts. Orchestras in Canada, the United States and Eastern Europe have performed his original compositions and arrangements.
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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