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Hello!... a warm welcome to the domain of Ronnie Williams the Jazz Blues Vocalist! Updated Saturday, June 23, 2007 Ronnie's audio/video CDROM album.. 'Cool to Blue' is now available! Songs on the album you'll be familiar with are Route 66, Mack the Knife, I Don't Worry About a Thing Ain't Got Nothin' but the Blues, Orange Colored Sky, Gravy Waltz, Fever, Cast Your Fate to the Wind, Swingin' Shepherd Blues, That's Amoré, One Note Samba-Desafinado, La Mer as well as four originals. A thumbnail Bio! As a 'Baby Boomer', Ronnie insists he landed on the planet at the best possible point within the evolution of music. From the wonderful Big Band, jazz singers and Broadway songs that surrounded him as a child.. to the embryonic rock & roll wafting from big Brother's car radio a few years later. His Dad was a naturally gifted singer, musician and artist.. Mother sang and played piano with ardor.. older Brother Les always killed 'em when he sang at the High School Hop.
When Ronnie arrived at his most impressionable early teens.. while happily being influenced by jazz vocalists such as Mel Tormé and Bobby Darin.. along came the Beatles and Bob Dylan.. what else could a boy do but join in? Around this time he was presented with three vital items: a Grundig TK1 portable reel to reel tape recorder, a Sankyo zoom reflex 8mm cine camera and a respectable 120 format 'still' camera. He has been capturing image and audio for pleasure and profit ever since! Fifteen had him in a duo with that big Brother of the car radio.. strong on harmony and quite a good aesthetic match except for Les being 6'3" and Ronnie measuring 5'7"! By Sixteen Ronnie was earning a modest living performing the previous generation's jazz standards.. and the current generation's hits.. in a smoky basement nightclub that could have been lifted straight out of a Thirties gangster movie. The music of bands such as the Stones.. Manfred Mann and the Animals led Ronnie.. and millions of other people at the time!.. to the music of the blues legends.. while the one of the UK's foremost jazz vocalists Georgie Fame with his innovative late '64 version of 'Yeh Yeh' (Pat Patrick and Rodgers Grant) was responsible for Ronnie discovering Mose Allison. His life was never to be the same! While gleefully misspending adolescence.. he toured and released five singles of own compositions with his R&B band 'The Five' through the latter half of the Sixties. During this period, as well as attending a Beatles concert in 1964, Ronnie had the privilege of working support to (or sneaking into parties with!) acts including the Stones, Roy Orbison, Dell Shannon and blues legends Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee to name a few. He even personally received a few tips on his harp playing from Sonny Terry. When pop bands eventually became pub bands, Ronnie turned to writing and producing Radio & TV commercial and corporate multimedia. The renaissance of 'cool' jazz vocalists during the Nineties inspired Ronnie to emerge from the obscurity of the jingle jungle and return to what he knows and does best.. singing with passion! Remembering
the irreplaceable Mel Tormé who died at 73 on June 5 1999.. Contact: ronnie at ronniewilliams dot com
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