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    Dicky Williams
    Dicky Williams

    North Carolinan Dicky Williams's musical career began with "Tee Na Na" (1960) one of many nonsense-syllable, novelty singles popular in the late fifties and early sixties, but other than a few random singles in the Otis Redding/Stax vein or Chuck and Chick Willis style, Williams did not release a debut album until a fourteen years later with 1974's Tripple Dyn-o-mite. However throughout this time period (1960-1980), he was also producing, arranging and/or writing music for various little-known Northern Soul artists such as Ruby Johnson, Jeanie Dee, Winfield Parker, Dr. Soul, Billy the Kidd and the Prisoners of Love, Willie Diggs, and Les Chansonettes. Red Negligee, White Whiskey & Blue Lights, Williams' second album, did not appear until another half-dozen years had passed. The title tune was a powerful, country-influenced R&B hybrid, but the centerpiece of the collection was a song that would become one of Williams' signature tunes - an Otis Redding-like piece of Southern Soul titled "In The Same Motel" ("I was in Room 103/ She was in Room 104") that actually foreshadowed Z. Z. Hill's "Cheating In The Next Room" (1987) and similar chitlin' circuit motel-themed classics of the late eighties and nineties. Dicky also arranged, played on and produced a record by a gospel group called The Faithkeepers, releasing an LP entitled Hell Is Going To Be Crowded in 1988. The most fruitful period in Williams' career followed: three consecutive albums released on the small but respected R&B Indie label out of Atlanta, Ichiban Records, in the late 80's and early 90's: In Your Face (1989), I Want You For Breakfast (1991) and Full Grown Man (1995). These obscure sets solidified Dicky Williams' underground reputation for bawdy and explicit material and put Dicky Williams in the company of many of the pioneers of contemporary Southern Soul, featuring such worthy examples of the genre as: "Come Back Pussy," "I Want You For Breakfast," "Everything Is Everything," "Beer Drinking Man" and "President Of The Blues." In the late 90's, the Ichiban Records company failed, filing bankruptcy and leaving the artists without royalties for their work. (Ichiban was resurrected later as a hiphop label.) Like many of that era's Southern Soul artists, Williams' career again fell on hard times. Over the next decade, while Southern Soul was beginning to flourish at Malaco, Ecko, and other indie Southern Soul labels, Williams' output languished. Two obscure and scantily distributed collections followed over the next decade until, at last, the indie Southern Soul label CDS signed Williams to a contract and released I'm Back Again (2007). The album featured a collaboration with the blues/jazz guitarist Ken Massey and spawned a popular single, "Dog Kinda Love." Most recently, with producer Jerry Teel, Williams released a "country-gospel" album also called Hell's Going To Be Crowded (Unity Deep, 2011).

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