Clifford R. Murphy – Ink: The Indelible J. Mayo Williams
332 pages Softcover Edition
Despite excelling at two entirely different careers, the legacy of Jay Mayo “Ink” Williams has faded into the mists of time. His 2004 induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis attests to the extent of his contributions to blues music.
The author, Clifford R. Murphy, discovered Williams almost by accident as he began his course work in a PHD program in Ethnomusicology at Brown University. In reading some old issues of 78 Quarterly magazine, Murphy discovered a reference to Williams attending Brown on a football scholarship almost a century prior. That was enough to send the author down the proverbial rabbit hole, where he quickly was stunned by the scope of Williams’ accomplishments, hence this biography based on his extensive research that paints a vivid picture of a fascinating life of a remarkable man.
In his foreword, Murphy relates a story about the great piano player Little Brother Montgomery being taken to a meeting with Williams at Decca Records. He entered a room to meet with a well-dressed black man. Montgomery had a hard time believing that man was indeed the famous record man, as he had never seen a black man in such a position of power.
Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1894, Williams became a local sensation in high school in track and football due to his blazing speed. He also acquired the “Ink” nickname, which the author postulates could have a number of origins, but most likely stemming from the student being dark-skinned in a predominantly white school. After a year at Howard University, Williams was offered a football scholarship at Brown University. The offer was based on a recommendation by Frederick Douglas “Fritz” Pollard, who had befriended Williams when both competed in the 1912 Illinois State Track finals. Their lives would intersect numerous times during their lifelong friendship.
The two men were key building blocks for the Brown team. Pollard was a hard-nosed running back while Williams competed on both sides of the ball as an end on offense and defense, where his speed was an asset. The early days of football were brutal with little in the way of padding or helmets. Yet Williams became renown for never missing a play even though he did not wear a helmet.
After college, the duo played in the American Professional Football Association in 1921, which became the National Football League the following year. Both men continued to excel even as racism reared its ugly face. Pollard became the first black head coach of a pro team, which helped him get posthumously inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The author shares a number of newspaper reports that his research uncovered that highlight the quality of play that Williams delivered whenever he stepped on the field. While others like Pollard and Paul Robeson were recognized for their efforts in establishing the NFL, and breaking the color barrier, Williams was unfairly relegated to footnote status.
After college, Williams settled in Chicago, where he began to work as a distributor and collection agent for Black Swan Records, a black-owned label making records for an African-American audience. As part of his job, Williams would frequent the many music venues the city had to offer, keeping an eye out for new talent. He also would supplement his income during the Prohibition years by peddling his own bathtub gin. When Black Swan folded, Williams made a trip to Wisconsin to convince the executives at Paramount Records to let him begin to record black artists for burgeoning race record market.
Williams had a knack for finding talent. He quickly hired a piano player to be the in-house music arranger. In the blues world, he was known as Georgia Tom, but the world has long remembered him as Thomas A. Dorsey, the composer of many revered gospel hymns. Soon Williams was cutting records with singer Alberta Hunter and the New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton. He really struck paydirt with the decision to record Gertrude “Ma” Rainey at the age of 36 years old, the first time she had ever recorded. Her records were a hit in the market place.
From there, Williams signed Papa Charlie Jackson, Big Bill Broonzy, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. He formed a music publishing company when he realized early on that the real money was made by whoever owned the rights to the hit songs. Some artists felt Williams conducted some underhanded business by plying artists with plenty of alcohol while they were recording, then getting them to sign over the publishing rights to their songs to him. Williams certainly wasn’t the only one employing that strategy, but he seemed to have perfected it. In 1926, he struck gold again with Arthur “Blind” Blake, a masterful guitarist who cut 79 songs for the label.
After the failure of his short-lived Black Patti record label, the record man started working for another big label, Vocalion Records. Soon he was cutting records Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell, the piano man Cow Cow Davenport, and the Hokum Boys, featuring Dorsey and guitarist Tampa Red. The duo wrote a song full of sexual innuendo, “It’s Tight Like That,” that became a massive hit. Williams also supervised the session for Bo Carter and “Papa” Charlie McCoy that featured the first time the classic tune “Corrina Corrina” was recorded.
Getting help from artists like piano man Sammy Price, Williams continued to work with more legendary figures like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, and Clarence “Pine Top” Smith. He also recorded Mahalia Jackson for the first time. Williams then helped mold the sound of Louis Jordan and the Tympani Five, convincing the band leader to add a string bass and a tenor saxophone to fill out the group’s sound. Once they recorded “I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town,” Jordan hit the big time, cranking out one hit after another.
Murphy is adept at weaving together the two careers that Williams enjoyed. At times it can be hard to fathom how one man could be so influential in such diverse occupations. Murphy makes it clear that Williams had associations that stretched from George Halas to W.E.B. Du Bois, Muddy Waters to Nat “King” Cole. The author also addresses race and pro football, particularly the 13 year stretch during which black players were effectively banned from playing in the league. There is also an eight page section that features the few existing B&W photos that feature Williams from various points of his life.
Not your typical music biography, Ink is a worthy tribute to a man whose legacy deserves greater recognition, particularly when it pertains to his seemingly unerring ability to discover and record so many outstanding blues artists. It is definitely worth a read, especially if you share a passion for football and music!
