{"id":793939,"date":"2019-03-18T20:05:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T02:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=809901"},"modified":"2019-03-18T20:05:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T02:05:44","slug":"andre-williams-rb-singer-and-godfather-of-rap-dead-at-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/andre-williams-rb-singer-and-godfather-of-rap-dead-at-82\/","title":{"rendered":"Andre Williams, R&B Singer and \u2018Godfather of Rap,\u2019 Dead at 82"},"content":{"rendered":"
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R&B singer-producer Andre Williams has died at age 82. His label, Pravda Records, confirmed the news on Facebook<\/a>, writing, \u201cIt is with great sadness that we announce the passing of legendary artist Andre Williams \u2026 He touched our lives and the lives of countless others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 manager, Kenn Goodman, confirmed to Billboard<\/em><\/a> that the musician died Sunday, March 17th in Chicago, Illinois while in hospice care, two weeks after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He noted that the disease spread to Williams\u2019 lungs and brain, after which point \u201chis body started shutting down pretty quickly.\u201d He had reportedly been battling several other health issues, including seizures and strokes, though he was \u201ccommitted to trying to sing and record again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Zephire \u201cAndre\u201d Williams was born November 1st, 1936 in Bessemer, Alabama. After moving to Detroit, Michigan in the early 1950s, he found a home in the city\u2019s R&B scene and signed with the R&B label Fortune Records as a teenager. Williams fronted the 5 Dollars and issued hit solo tracks like \u201cJail Bait\u201d and \u201cBacon Fat\u201d; on the latter, he utilized a spoken-sung technique that earned him the nickname \u201cthe Godfather of Rap.\u201d He was also billed as \u201cMr. Rhythm\u201d during his tenure with the label. <\/span><\/p>\n

Williams became affiliated with the burgeoning Motown label in the 1960s \u2014 co-writing the song \u201cThank You (For Loving Me All the Way)\u201d for a 13-year-old Stevie Wonder and working with artists like the Temptations and the Contours. He also co-wrote the soul song \u201cShake a Tail Feather,\u201d which Ray Charles famously performed in the 1980 film comedy The Blues Brothers<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In later decades, while maintaining a solo career, he collaborated with artists like Ike & Tina Turner, Mary Wells, Parliament and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He released his final album, Don\u2019t Ever Give Up<\/em>, in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R&B singer-producer Andre Williams has died at age 82. His label, Pravda Records, confirmed the news on Facebook, writing, \u201cIt is with great sadness that we announce the passing of legendary artist Andre Williams \u2026 He touched our lives and the lives of countless others.\u201d Williams\u2019 manager, Kenn Goodman, confirmed to Billboard that the musician […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 15:50:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}