Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Spencer Williams was born on October 14, 1889 in New Orleans, Louisiana and was educated at St. Charles University in New Orleans. By 1907 he was performing in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to New York City around 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 became one of his most popular songs and is still recorded by musicians to this day.

He toured Europe with bands from 1925 to 1928 during this time he wrote for Josephine Baker at the Folies Bergère in Paris. Spencer returned to New York for a few years until 1932 when he moved to Europe, spending most of his time in London, England before moving to Stockholm, Sweden in 1951.

His hit songs include Basin Street Blues, I Ain’t Got Nobody, Royal Garden Blues, Mahogany Hall Stomp, I’ve Found a New Baby, Everybody Loves My Baby, Shimmy-Sha-Wobble, Boodle Am Shake, Tishomingo Blues, Fireworks, I Ain’t Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly Roll, Arkansas Blues, Georgia Grind, Paradise Blues, When Lights Are Low, and My Man o’ War.

Returning to New York City in 1957, composer, pianist, and singer Spencer Williams, who was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, before passing away in Flushing, New York on July 14, 1965.

More Posts: composer,history,instrumental,jazz,music,piano,vocal