Perk Williams on Allstar

Perk Williams - One Sweet Touch (Allstar A-7302), 1964

This is the last, belated, part of my series of Jimmy Heap/Melody Masters themed posts. Today, we will explore the life and times of the Melody Masters' main vocalist, Perk Williams. Williams was the band's fiddler and moreover, added to the groups' style with his distinctive voice.

Houston Perk Williams, to give him his full name, was born on November 19, 1926, on a farm near Chriesman, Texas, a small town in the middle of nowhere, 45 miles away from Taylor. Williams spent most of his life in Chriesman, which is today close to being a ghost town. Williams attended local school there and began playing the fiddle at the age of eight years, soon performing at local social events. A year later, he won first prize in a fiddle contest and another year later, could be heard on radio KTBC in Austin for the first time.

At age 16, Williams started playing in a band called the Texas Glee Boys. He would continue to perform with other local Texas bands for the next years. After moving to Brenham, he joined another group that was heard regularly on KWHI but eventually founded his own band that could be heard on KORA in Bryan and WTAW in College Station. In 1948, Williams married Jane Kornegay and the couple had one daughter. Tragically, his wife would be killed in a car accident in 1955.

By the late 1940s, Williams likely had gained some popularity in the area as a talented musician and in 1949, joined Jimmy Heap's Melody Masters, a band from Taylor that had been active for the past few years. They already had made some recordings for a local label and signed a recording deal with Imperial that year. Williams, who had limited himself to playing the fiddle in all previous bands, tried out as a vocalist on the Melody Masters' first session for the label and the debut record, "Today, Tonight and Tomorrow" sold well enough to earn Williams a spot as the main vocalist among the many talented singers in the band.

Williams would be part of the band until 1957, recording numerous sessions with the Melody Masters for Imperial and later for Capitol. It was Williams who sang on the band's most memorable recordings, "Release Me" (a chart hit for the group) and their original version of "Wild Side of Life," two songs that later turned out to be country music classics. Williams' voice and his style of singing became an integral part of the Melody Masters sound and helped the band getting popularity all over Texas.

By 1956, Capitol had dropped the Melody Masters from their roster but Heap and the band decided to continue, recording and releasing their songs independently. However, Williams recorded his last session with the band in the fall of 1957, subsequently leaving the Melody Masters. Heap went with the times and had begun transforming the Masters into a rock'n'roll dance band, which likely did not suit Williams' style and taste.

After leaving the Melody Masters, with whom he had performed for about eight years, he founded his own band, the Gold Star Playboys, performing around Bryan and College Station. Williams also recorded first time solo in 1956, a rare and often overlooked split-single with Cowboy Blair for the Echo label. He then would not record until 1960, when he cut two singles for Pappy Daily's D label, for which Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters also recorded one disc.

In 1963, Williams recorded a solo version of "Release Me" for the local Paradise label and a year later, had a single out on Houston's Allstar label that recorded a lot of Texas music. Both "One Sweet Touch" and "I'm That Fool" were uptempo numbers with an updated sound but clearly rooted in Williams' western swing background. Interestingly, "I'm That Fool" was co-written by Doug Dickerson, who was most likely dubious Dallas based songwriter/singer Dub Dickerson.

Shiner Gazette, September 5, 1975

Williams continued to record into the 1970s and performed in the area. He had a stroke in 1983, leaiving him unable to work and also limiting his skills on the fiddle. Nevertheless, he didn't give up and in the early 1990s, befriended with a young Taylor musician, Paul Schlesinger, whom he taught his first tunes on the fiddle.

Williams was diagnosed with cancer and died on January 3, 1994 at the age of 67 years. He had married a second time in the mid 1950s, Betty Jane Sherwood, with whom he had four children. Since 2000, an annual music festival is held in Chriesman as a tribute to the town's only popular son, the "Perk Festival." One of the mainstays is Williams' protégé Paul Schlesinger.

Recommended reading
• Perk Williams on Twirl (Some Local Loser blog)
• Jimmy Heap & the Melody Masters on Imperial (Wired for Sound blog)

See also
• A Heap of Texas Music: The Story of Jimmie Heap and the Melody Masters
• Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters on Fame
• Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters on Capitol, Part I
 • Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters on Capitol, Part II

Sources
• Perk Williams biography
• Perk Williams 45cat entry