A funky beat was characterized by drummers who improvised to make people dance harder. and a whole lot of people right now aren't hip to his contribution to rock. Ridgely remembered the sessions, "Hungry (Williams) was on drums this particular beat was his style- nobody could duplicate what he was doing." Record label owner and producer Al Reed acknowledged, "The change came when Funky Charles started playing drums. In Ridgely's When I Meet My Girl Williams came upon the well-known drum set figure of performing the high-low conga accents with rimshot-on-snare and open snare or tom-tom, as he did in Huey Smith's Free, Single and Disengaged. In his playing on Tommy Ridgely's The Girl Across The Street, the shrill, metal sound he plays on the bell of his cymbal is described by writer Antoon Aukes as an Afro-Cuban cáscara that Latin percussionists would play on a cowbell or on the sides of timbales. He said "I'd take all this and hook it up and make a jambalaya out of it, and it'd come out like this funky thing." Williams was known for his experiments with adapting Latin percussion patterns to the drum set. Williams added Latin effects to his stylistic influences that included marches, country and western, and the music of the Spiritual church of his youth. Charles' playing emanated out of the calypso-type stuff." During his time at Club Tijuana Williams often took part in drumming contests with Ricardo Lopez, a Cuban percussionist who played bongos and congas. Wasn't no other drummer doing that." Singer, guitarist, and songwriter Earl King agreed, "I've seen him do things with his left hand: I'm still waiting for another drummer to do it. I started the 'double clutching' with my bass drum, with my foot. I had calypso going and funk at the same time. Like a double beat on the bass drum that makes it funky. My music, my drumming, is between calypso and rock, you know, blues. I used to, I still do it, I played thirty-second notes with my left hand, and no drummers could do that. Williams told Tad Jones, " Paul Gayten and Earl Palmer and all of 'em used to come up there (to Club Tijuana) just to listen to me play, because they couldn't understand what I was doing. And everytime I got a chance, I'd set up Tenoo's drums like an hour before the gig, and I would sit on his drums and practice before the gig started." Influences and Technique But, ah, they made me a valet Fats made me a valet. Williams said of Coleman, "I idolized the dude, I always wanted to play like him. Both Williams and Lastie would later play drums for Domino. Coleman, left-handed like Williams, also taught Walter "Popee" Lastie. My timing and things was bad, but I did the best I could do." Williams' musical education continued when he studied Fats Domino's drummer Cornelius "Tenoo" Coleman. I finally convinced him to let me sit in.
And right after that, after Milton left, I think he got Honeyboy, plus he had Papoose ( Walter "Papoose" Nelson) on guitar. He was one of the best brush men to ever come out of New Orleans. At the time, he had a guy named Milton Stevens on drums. I'd worry Fess to death to sit in with him. I used to go up there to dance and things, and Fess was playing up there. There was a place called the Pepper Pot in Gretna, and that's how I met Professor Longhair. After I got out of the home, I went back to my parents. "That's where I was living, with my parents. I didn't like it." When Williams got out of the Municipal Boys Home he moved to McDonoghville, a neighborhood community of New Orleans on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. But he kept drivin' and drivin' it into my head, and I learned to play the trumpet a little bit. Dave, I don't like to play trumpet, I want to play drums'. "I used to tell him all the time, I say, 'Mr. Davis taught Louis Armstrong to play the trumpet, and encouraged young Williams to take up the horn.
His teacher there was Peter Davis, called Mr. Williams reported that "ever since I been big enough to know myself I used to be always beating on something, tin cans or something like that." Education Īt age eight or nine years old Williams was put into Municipal Boys Home on Franklin Avenue in New Orleans. played guitar and younger brother Lloyd played drums. He said his mother sang a lot because she was church-going, and his father liked to dance. Charles Williams was the second son in the family that included siblings Henry Jr., Clifford, Lloyd, and Mary Alice. was listed as a construction laborer with the Works Progress Administration. The family lived in the 2nd Ward of New Orleans at 2522 Howard Avenue according to the 1940 U.S.
Williams was born at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana on Februto Henry, Sr.