Spencer Williams
b. c.1889, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 14 July 1965. Believed to be a nephew of Lulu White, who operated Mahogany Hall, one of the best-known brothels in New Orleans, Williams began playing piano as a child. After living in Atlanta for a while he moved to Chicago, playing piano in an amusement park, but by 1916 was resident in New York and had embarked upon a hugely successful career as a songwriter. Among his songs, many of which became hits and have remained popular with singers and jazz instrumentalists to the present day, are I Ain't Got Nobody, Basin Street Blues, Tishomingo Blues, I Found A New Baby, Everybody Loves My Baby, Shim-me-sha-wabble, Mahogany Hall Stomp, I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None Of My Jelly Roll and Royal Garden Blues (these last two with the unrelated Clarence Williams). He also composed Fireworks and Skip The Gutter, which were recorded in 1928 by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, as was Squeeze Me, which Williams co-composed with Fats Waller. In the mid-20s he visited Paris to write special material for Joséphine Baker. He remained in Europe for a few years, visiting London and working with local and visiting American musicians. Around the end of the decade he was tried and acquitted on a charge of murder and soon thereafter moved to England, living in London until the early '50s. He then moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he lived until 1957; finally he returned to New York and died there in 1965.