Blues at Home Musician Elmore "Elmo" Williams passes at 83

Blues at Home Musician

Elmore "Elmo" Williams
passes at 83

February 6, 1933 - February 16, 2016

 

 

Elmore Williams, Jr., was born in Natchez in 1933. His

father was a blues guitarist who worked as a cement

finisher, and was killed while traveling to work in

Biloxi. Elmore was 10.

Elmore first began performing at local gatherings as

a teenager. He was drafted into the Army and

returned to Natchez after being discharged. He

started singing in a band led by John Fitzgerald and

featuring guitarist James Woods and drummer

Hezekiah Early. The trio often performed at Haney’s

Big House in Ferriday, Louisiana, the biggest club in

the region. In the mid-1950s, Williams formed his own

band, which played at Natchez area venues. In the

1970s and 1980s, Elmore performed mostly at

weddings and informal get-togethers. In 1984, he

performed at the World’s Fair in New Orleans and

traveled to the Netherlands. Elmore worked in

sawmills, a bakery and a dairy when not performing.

He returned to music full-time when the owners of

Oxford’s Fat Possum Records tracked him down and

recorded him with former bandmate Hezekiah Early.

In 1998, Fat Possum recorded

Takes One To Know One,

featuring the Natchez duo. Following its release,

Elmore and Hezekiah toured across the U.S., traveled

to Japan and made multiple visits to Europe.

“I ain't never thought about nothing else to do. I made more playing music than I was working them old jobs. My mama was working and making $9 a week. I was making $11. We pooled that money up there to come on up with my siblings, and it was rough. I didn't get a chance to finish school...I did get a ninth grade education. And I had to go to regular work and I said well, I ain't going

back. I just went on in life with that.”

-- Elmo Williams

 

We have lost Elmo Williams.  In 2011 my team and I drove to Natchez, Mississippi from my hometown of Vicksburg, about a 75 minute drive.  We were meeting Mississippi born living blues legend, Elmore "Elmo" Williams Jr., to include him in the Blues @ Home project. We followed him through his warm paneled kitchen to a comfortable den, we set up, and he slowly shared his layered life in the blues.  Elmo's wife had passed a year earlier, and he was carrying deep pain... it settled on every word. Even as he shared his raucous blues history, he spoke of his wife and family until it brought tears to all of us.  I chose to paint his image with his family portrait and the last supper present in the background...a seemingly opposite surrounding for a blues legend!  He was personally tortured by his church's stance on the blues, but he found grace in both and held to each for dear life!  Elmo, your talents will be so missed, thank you for leaving us your music and your story!  Blessings to your family and friends in their loss.   

 

- H. C. Porter 

 

Learn more about Blues@Home here

 

H.C. Porter Gallery, 1216 Washington St. Vicksburg, MS 39183

601 - 661 - 9444 . hcporter@hcporter.com . www.hcporter.com

 

Remembering L. C. Ulmer, Blues@Home Legend

Blues at Home Legend

L. C. Ulmer passes at 87

August 28, 1928 - February 14, 2016

 

     Lee Chester "L. C." Ulmer was born in 1928 in Stringer, Mississippi, and later moved to a plantation near Moss Hill with his musical family. L. C. grew up surrounded by music from family and local musicians who played at picnics, fish fries, and on his front porch.  

      He began playing guitar when he was 9 years old and, by the time he was 14, he was building railway trestles and playing regularly at juke joints. He traveled a lot around the Southeast, playing guitar for gospel quartets and taking various blues jobs at local clubs. In 1955, he ended up in Arizona, where he recorded advertisement songs and played with famous musicians such as Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole, and Fats Domino.
     After a brief stint in California, where he made his living playing on the streets, L. C. moved back to Laurel briefly before moving to Joliet, Illinois, where he lived for 37 years working construction, running an automotive shop and performing regularly as a one-man band. He performed on shows with well-known blues performers Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf and Jimmy Reed.  

After returning to Mississippi in 2001, L. C. has performed festivals across the state. He has traveled to Cuba, Italy, and Egypt to perform, and in 2011, he recorded his first CD, Blues Come Yonder, on the Hill Country Records label.

"My daddy taught us all how to work. He said... 'Ain't nobody going to give you nothing.' He wasn't wrong about that. And I found that out later on when I got to traveling. Good thing I knowed how to play the guitar and sing... Well I was pretty good on that. I got to be the ace of traveling - traveling blues man. Look at me. I'm getting big now."

-- L. C. Ulmer

L.C. had the sweetest spirit...the only non-smoking, non-drinking, vegetarian, read the Bible 12 times bluesman that ever existed, I feel certain! My team and I spent the day with him at his home in Ellisville, Mississippi in 2010, recording his words and capturing his image for the Blues @ Home project. Truly a living blues legend of Mississippi!   I chose to paint my image of him with the washtub framing his head as a nod to the early Russian tender saints paintings with the halos floating majestically behind them.  He is at home with God now, picking up specks of lint and putting them in old tomato cans just to keep Heaven tidy! Thank you L.C. for all that you have given us! You will be remembered and dearly missed. My love goes out to his friends and family.

- H. C. Porter

Learn more about Blues@Home here! 

H.C. Porter Gallery, 1216 Washington St. Vicksburg, MS 39183

601 - 661 - 9444 . hcporter@hcporter.com . www.hcporter.com