Eulogy

By Jon Hendricks

When I was "Little Johnny Hendricks," singing in Toledo, Ohio, in the late 1930s, JOE WILLIAMS was attracting attention in Chicago, where he had come up as a small child from "Go North" Georgia, as Joseph Goreed. Though our paths didn't cross till later, each of us knew what the other was doing. After the war he started sitting in with the Count Basie septet, and Basie hired him as a vocalist. Every Day made Joe an instant star. His voice was a magnificent instrument. It had everything--range, tone, vibrancy, sweetness--it was just mind boggling. He turned up the steam, made you want to get as much out of your voice as he did out of his. So when Dave Lambert, Annie Ross and I were experimenting with my lyricized versions of Basie instrumentals, I included Every Day. It was the hit tune of our all-time hit album, Sing a Song of Basie. We recorded an album with Joe and Basie, and then we were touring together, usually accompanied by jazz greats such as Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald. It was during these tours that we became family. I remember generous, gracious Joe Williams would teach us how to bow collectively at the end of the evening. We didn't know what we were doing, but with him choreographing we were precise, orderly, beautiful.

--Jon Hendricks, founder of the jazz ensemble Lambert, Hendricks & Ross