Charles "Hungry" Williams

Charles "Hungry" Williams (February 12, 1935 – May 10, 1986) was an American rhythm & blues drummer, best known for the innovative and influential technique he used on numerous recordings that came out of New Orleans in the 1950s and 1960s.

Early life Williams was born at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 12, 1935, to Henry Sr. and Beatrice (née Henderson) Williams. The family lived in the 2nd Ward of New Orleans at 2522 Howard Avenue according to the 1940 U.S. Census. Henry Sr. was listed as a construction laborer with the Works Progress Administration. Charles Williams was the second son in the family that included siblings Henry Jr., Clifford, Lloyd, and Mary Alice. He said his mother sang a lot because she was church-going, and his father liked to dance. Henry Jr. played guitar and younger brother Lloyd played drums. Williams reported that "ever since I been big enough to know myself I used to be always beating on something, tin cans or something like that." Williams said of Coleman, "I idolized the dude, I always wanted to play like him. But, ah, they made me a valet, Fats [Domino] made me a valet. And everytime I got a chance, I'd set up Tenoo's drums like an hour before the gig, and I would sit on his drums and practice before the gig started." During his time at Club Tijuana Williams often took part in drumming contests with Ricardo Lopez, a Cuban percussionist who played bongos and congas. Williams added Latin effects to his stylistic influences that included marches, country and western, and the music of the Spiritual church of his youth. He said "I'd take all this and hook it up and make a jambalaya out of it, and it'd come out like this funky thing." In Ridgely's "When I Meet My Girl", Williams came upon the well-known drum set figure of performing the high-low conga accents with rimshot-on-snare and open snare or tom-tom, as he did in Huey Smith's "Free, Single and Disengaged". Palmer wrote in his autobiography, “A guy we called Hungry, Charlie Williams, was a mother on drums, a guy who never knew how good he was.”

Career In the early 1950s Williams joined pianist Paul Gayten's band during the band's residency at the Brass Rail club on Canal Street. The band included sax man Lee Allen. Gayten later told author John Broven, "For a while I had one of the greatest drummers in the world- that was Hungry Williams." Warren joined fellow Abbeville swamp pop musician Bobby Charles Guidry in seeking out rhythm and blues artists. Storm and Bobby Charles would visit the Brass Rail and listen to Paul Gayten's R&B band featuring tenor sax star Allen and- at different times- world-class drummers Palmer and Williams. “I think I picked up a lot of the New Orleans style of drumming and brought it down to Lafayette,” Storm said. Through the years he was to give a new dimension to the art of drumming in South Louisiana. From 1959 through 1965, Storm was session drummer for Jay Miller's studio band in Crowley, La., accompanying swamp-blues stars Slim Harpo, Lightnin' Slim, Lazy Lester, Lonesome Sundown and many other acts.

Williams left Gayten's band in 1953. After working as a poker dealer on Rampart Street he began to sit in with the house band in 1954. The band included pianist Huey Smith, saxophonist Robert Parker, and blind singer/ guitarist Billy Tate. Williams soon became a regular member of the band. It was Huey "Piano" Smith who named him "Hungry", Williams said. "I'd order a double order every time I'd eat. I'd have a plate of beans stacked that high, beans and rice. I went up to two hundred and six pounds when I was eighteen years old. I'd be walking around looking like a Baptist mule." It was the Dew Drop Cafe cook, Huey recalled, who noticed Williams' habit of ordering double portions and subsequently described the drummer as "hungry". Smith and other musicians followed the cook's lead, and Charles Williams became "Hungry" Williams.

Williams first worked as a studio musician in June 1953 when Huey Smith cut "You Made Me Cry" and "You're Down With Me" for Savoy Records at J&M Studio. The cuts featured Smith on piano and vocals, Lee Allen on sax, Billy Tate on guitar, Roland Cook on bass, and Williams on drums. In December 1955, former bandmate Huey Smith wrote and played piano on Williams' (on drums and vocals) first single for Checker Records "Mary Don't You Weep, Mary Don't You Moan," backed with "So Glad She's Mine", written by Williams. Paul Gayten, at that time New Orleans A&R man for Chess Records and subsidiary Checker, arranged the session. Gayten set up another session in March 1957 when Williams recorded "Darling" backed with "So Worried". Three tracks from a June 1958 session "Rhythmatic Rhythm", "I Cried All The Way Home," and "What Can I Do" remained unreleased until 1984, appearing on Chess: New Orleans R&B. The key to that sound was the group of studio musicians associated with Cosimo Matassa's studio that included Charles "Hungry" Williams on drums.

Huey Smith recorded his hit "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" (#5 on Billboard's R&B chart and #52 on the pop chart) for Ace Records in June 1957. Williams added his distinctive polyrhythmic drumming to that track as well as to Smith's 1958 hit recording "Don't You Just Know It" backed with "High Blood Pressure" (#4 on the R&B chart and #9 on the pop chart). Fillyau acknowledged, "Now this (New Orleans) is where funk was really created! That's where funk originated."

Williams continued to record and perform with Huey Smith and The Clowns. He was also part of the Ace Records studio session personnel that included Alvin "Red" Tyler on tenor and baritone sax, Lee Allen on tenor sax, Melvin Lastie on cornet, Allen Toussaint on piano, Frank Fields on bass, and Justin Adams on guitar, and Williams on drums. Other artists recorded for Ace included Sugarboy Crawford, Benny Spellman, Chuck Carbo, Jimmy Clanton, Joe Tex, Bobby Marchan, James Booker, Lee Dorsey, Big Boy Myles, and Mac Rebennac. Between 1957 and 1959 Williams was New Orleans' premier studio drummer. Using his "double clutch" style, his hard-driving rhythms punctuated and enhanced hundreds of records on various labels with artists like Fats Domino, Paul Gayten, Professor Longhair, Mickey and Sylvia, Smiley Lewis, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters's, Art Neville, Bobby Mitchell, Frankie Ford, Allen Toussaint, Earl King, Bobby Charles, Chris Kenner, Roy Brown, Dave Bartholomew, Lee Allen, and dozens more.

In the early 1960s, Williams lost his position as the first call studio drummer in New Orleans to John Boudreaux, and dropped out of the recording scene. He left for New York as the British Invasion eclipsed record sales and radio play in New Orleans.

Later years In his later years Williams made few public appearances. His last was an impromptu jam session at New York City's Lone Star Cafe in April 1985. “I remember Dr. John was playing 'Iko Iko'", said Barbara Becker, a close friend to Williams, “and Charlie thought the drummer didn't have the beat right. So he just jumped up on the stage and took the sticks out of his hands and began to play."

Charles “Hungry” Williams died on May 10, 1986, in New York City after years of battling Paget's disease of bone, a crippling bone marrow disorder.