Maurice Williams is one of the most extraordinarily durable
figures in the history of classic rhythm-and-blues and
rock 'n roll. "Stay," became one of the classic
singles in the history of rock 'n roll and r&b-a No. 1
mega-hit upon its release in 1960 on Al Silver's Herald
label, and a popular favorite for decades since, revived
in 1987 with its prominent use in the movie Dirty Dancing.
Williams has remained active as a performer and,
periodically, as a recording artist and songwriter,
ever since.
Maurice Williams was born in Lancaster, S.C. in 1940 (one
source indicates Apr. 26, 1938), and showed himself musically
inclined from a very early age-he started learning the piano
from his older sister in the late 1940's, practicing daily so
that by the time he was 10 years old he was having friends
from elementary school over for informal jam sessions at his
house. Williams had sung in church, but his interest lay more
in popular music, and in 1953, he and his friends were ready
to form a group that they called the Royal Charms. The
group's original membership, in addition to Williams,
included Earl Gainey (tenor, guitar) Willie Jones (baritone),
William Massey (tenor, baritone, trumpet), and Norman Wade
(bass). They played school events and talent shows, winning
several and acquiring a local following, before they finally
got a paying gig at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post.
The year they'd started out, 1953, Williams had also written
two songs that were to have a pivotal effect on his life
and career, and the group's history: "Little Darling" and "Stay."
The Royal Charms loved performing, and were popular locally,
but working the area around Lancaster, they found their prospects
limited. The group's first real break took place in 1956 when a
Nashville disc jockey hooked them up with Ernie Young, the
head of Excello Records-Williams, then only 16, bluffed
his way into an audition over the phone and then had to raise
money from friends and local merchants in Lancaster to make
the trip to Nashville in December of 1956.
"Little Darling" impressed Young, although he altered it
somewhat, giving the song a calypso beat that it didn't
originally have. He also insisted on the group changing
its name-it seemed as though every r&b vocal group (the
word "do-wop" hadn't been invented yet) had either
"Royal" or "Charms" in its name, and bird-named
groups were too common as well. Young happened to
like flowers, and selected the name the Gladiolas.
"Little Darling" by the Gladiolas was released by Excello
in January of 1957 and was a hit on the r&b charts, rising
to No. 11 in a four week run in the early spring of that
year. It had a more muted presence on the pop charts,
lingering there for 11 weeks but never getting higher
than No. 41.
What happened next is a matter of interpretation. In some
historians' eyes, the Gladiolas' version of the song was
undercut by a competing rendition, recorded for Mercury
by a white Canadian group called the Diamonds, which rose
to No. 1 on the pop charts and sold more than a million
copies, even becoming a definitive "do-wop"-type single.
On the other hand, some listeners, comparing the two
versions, say that the Diamonds' version is more fully
realized than that by the Gladiolas, not only with a more
ambitious arrangement and greater vocal virtuosity, but
a better sound; the Gladiolas' single, by contrast, almost
seems like a demo, only partly realized in technical terms.
Regardless of the virtues of either, Williams, for his
part, never minded the Diamonds' version, because Young-in
an example of honesty all too rare in the record business
in those days-told him that, as writer of the song, all he
should care about is that it sells and gets played, not
whose version sells. Young had also left him with full
rights as songwriter, rather than trying to buy them away
from him, which Williams admits he could've done for
practically no money at all in those days. It was a
decision that was to earn Williams a vast amount of money
at the age of 17 and beyond, and educated him painlessly
and well about the business side of the music business.
Williams was a serious high school student, and he earned
a music scholarship to Allen University in Columbia, S.C.
that he had to turn down-he was simply doing too much in
music to interupt his career, tempting as it was. The
Gladiolas kept performing, touring the west once before
returning to South Carolina, where they became a heavy
favorite among fraternities, especially at the University
of South Carolina. At the end of 1958, the group decided
against re-signing with Excello, which meant they had to
give up their name, which Young owned. This could have
been a disaster, forcing them to re-establish themselves
in a new incarnation, but a name and a song, courtesy
of Williams, made that easy. According to Williams, it
was group member Bobby Gore who saw a German car called
a Zodiac, and immediately seized on the name-Maurice
Williams and the Zodiacs became the group's new identity.
Over the next year, the original Zodiacs' line-up expanded
to nine members, including two saxmen (Calvin McKinnie,
Harold Alexander). In 1960, the band hooked up with Al
Silver of Herald Records in New York, by way of producers
Phil Gernhardt and Al McCullough. The group was supposed
to provide demos, and Williams retrieved a song he had
written back in 1953, strangely enough, to the same girl
for whom he'd written "Little Darling"-called "Stay" and
present it to Silver.
The group signed with Herald and "Stay," sparked by a
stunning falsetto performance by Shane Gaston, became
their debut on the label during the summer of 1960. It
hit No. 1 that fall and easily topped a million sales
at the time, also becoming the biggest hit in the
history of Herald Records. Williams and the Zodiacs
never had another record nearly as big as "Stay," which
came out at just the right moment and seemed to sell in
subsequent years at the drop of a hat, as a romantic
and nostalgia favorite-by some estimates, their record
has topped 10 million sales internationally. Additionally,
other artists, including the Four Seasons, Jackson Browne,
and Rufus & Chaka Khan, all made the top 20 or better
with their respective versions of the song, and the
Hollies cut it as a single at the outset of their career.
The Zodiacs didn't fare as well as the song. "I Remember,"
also released on Herald, never made it past No. 86 on the
pop charts and didn't appear on the r&b charts at all.
Neither did "Come Along," which was released in the spring
of 1961 and only climbed to No. 83 on the pop charts.
During the mid-1960's, the group hooked up with the
New Orleans-based production team of Marshall Sehorn and
Allen Toussaint. With their guidance, the group cut a
passionate, soulful recording of Williams' "May I,"
a dazzlingly beautiful song that held a lot of promise.
Unfortunately, they chose to license it to Vee Jay, which
was then the most successful Black-owned record company
in the world. But Vee Jay went into bankruptcy within days
of the record's national release, and "May I" never
recovered-the record did get out on the Dee Su label
in New Orleans, which rescued it physically from oblivion,
and it found an audience on the radio. It has been
certified a million-seller by the RIAA, despite never
managing to appear on either the pop or r&b charts.
Five years later, it became a modest top 40 hit in a
smoother version by Bill Deal & the Rhondells, a white
dance-rock and r&b-based band from the Virginia-Carolinas
area who'd been doing it on stage for years. The group
subsequently released records on Atlantic, Sea-Horn,
and Scepter, including a fine single, "Return," with
Gladys Knight & the Pips singing behind them. Williams
saw minimal chart action from any of this, but remained
active-Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs were still a major
draw in the south, especially in their native state,
and in 1965 cut a live album at Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Williams led various
incarnations of the Zodiacs on oldies tours, primarily
on the Beach Music circuit on the U.S. East Coast.
In the wake of Dirty Dancing, which yielded sales of
another fifteen million copies of "Stay," he re-emerged
as a recording artist on the Ripete label, based in
Columbia, S.C., which specializes in beach music
(they've also got a best-of the Swinging Medallions
out on CD). Ripete has since released the
impossible-to-find 1965 live album on CD, as part of an
excellent career anthology of Maurice Williams &
the Zodiacs.
Today, Maurice Williams resides in Charlotte, NC.
He is an active performer on the beach music circuit
and is extremely popular wherever he performs. His
latest album, Back To The Basics on EMN Records
(also based in Charlotte) features new performances
of his hits Stay, Little Darlin' and May I that are
very much worth the price of the album alone. Maurice is
an inductee of the South Carolina Music and Entertainment
Hall of Fame, and the Beach Music Hall of Fame in Myrtle Beach.
