This Wednesday, November 22nd, will mark an apotheosis of sorts for a man who, despite being raised in El Dorado (pronounced El Dor-RAY-do), Arkansas, has become an institution of Memphis music. That would be pianist and performer extraordinaire Jason D. Williams, who’s been pounding the ivories with boogie-woogie fervor here for over 40 years. Now, those decades of musical mania will culminate in Williams receiving a brass note on Beale Street, in a ceremony just before his performance at Lafayette’s Music Room, where he’ll preside over his twelfth annual “Thanksgiving Eve” show at the venue.
Arriving in Memphis in 1982, Williams quickly began a residency at Mallards in The Peabody Hotel, through which his reputation rapidly grew. Soon after, Jason D. Williams was signed to RCA Records, and later on a latter-day iteration of the Sun Records label. Williams now joins a select few honored by both the Peabody Brass Duck Feet and the Beale Street Brass Note.
Honoring the artist thus is appropriate, given his role in keeping the art of boogie woogie and rock and roll piano alive. As he told the Memphis Flyer in 2021, “You take somebody like Jerry Lee Lewis singing ‘Five foot two, eyes of blue,’ and that was a lesson on the chords of the 1800s. Or ‘Alabama Jubilee,’ or ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’ Between him and Leon Redbone, you could just about get all the storybook you needed on how to play good ol’ chord changes. Because those songs have a lot of the changes that go through everything, not just the pounding rockabilly stuff. You listen to that stuff, or even Al Jolson, and you’ll get all the changes you need to be a great musician.”
Williams, who often composes songs on the spot, even while performing onstage, has clearly internalized The Great American Songbook and more, yet can walk listeners through all of history, even up to the modern era. “I’ll go from ragtime up to some Elton John or ‘Freebird’ or whatever,” he told the Flyer. “Whatever comes to my mind. I usually am the first one to hear what I’m doing. I’m just an audience member too. My fingers take off and I start singing, and it could just be something somebody said in the audience, and my fingers take off, and I go, ‘Okay, here I go!’”
Jason D. Williams will receive a Beale Street Brass Note and perform at Lafayette’s Music Room, with opener Susan Marshall, this Wednesday, November 22nd, at 7 p.m. Visit lafayettes.com for details.
