Nancy Williams

Nancy Williams is an American operatic mezzo-soprano born in Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1932 and active in the United States. She grows up in a close-knit family as the oldest of six children, with a father who works in an iron foundry and a mother who works as a domestic.

Early life and training

Williams sings in church choirs as a child and begins performing publicly at a young age, including at family gatherings during summer visits to her grandmother’s home near Columbus, Ohio. She has no formal voice training and learns by listening rather than reading music. As a teenager in Columbus, she becomes the host of a radio programme called Skyline Melody, performing requests from listeners. In 1955, she attends Central State College in Ohio for a year before leaving to pursue singing.

Career

Williams performs in local theatre clubs in the Columbus area in the early 1950s and becomes a member of Rusty Bryant’s Carolyn Club Band from 1956 to 1958, touring widely in the United States and Canada as the group’s female vocalist. In 1959 she moves to New York City, works as a secretary at the New York Institute of Technology, and sings in clubs at night. A demonstration session leads to a contract with Capitol Records, and she releases her first album, Like in Love, in 1959.

Her repertoire develops through collaboration with jazz saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderly, who influences her move toward more sophisticated jazz and ballad material. She records with him on Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderly Quintet in 1962. Other early Capitol recordings include Something Wonderful, The Swingin's Mutual, How Glad I Am, and Gentle Is My Love. Her hits include “Guess Who I Saw Today,” “Tell Me the Truth,” and “Save Your Love for Me.”

Williams becomes a major club performer, appearing in venues such as the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles and the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, often working two shows a night. Her style spans jazz, rhythm and blues, pop, cabaret, ballads and torch songs, and she describes herself as a “song stylist.”

Television, awards and later work

She hosts The Nancy Wilson Show in 1967 and 1968 and appears on many television programmes, including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Flip Wilson Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, The Today Show, The Sammy Davis Jr. Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Andy Williams Show and The Arsenio Hall Show. She also appears in television series and turns down film work because she does not find roles she wants to perform.

Williams wins a Grammy Award in 1964 for How Glad I Am and receives further Grammy nominations for Gentle Is My Love, Forbidden Lover and With My Lover Beside Me. She wins an Emmy Award for The Nancy Wilson Show in 1975, receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990, and is also honoured with the Tokyo Song Festival, the Global Entertainer of the Year award from the World Conference of Mayors, an NAACP Image Award, an Essence Award, the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change Award and the Turner Broadcasting Trumpet Award for Outstanding Achievement.

She continues recording across several labels, including Columbia, EMI Japan, Nippon Columbia, Interface, MCA and Elektra. Later albums include The Two of Us and Keep You Satisfied with Ramsey Lewis, as well as Forbidden Lover, Nancy Now!, With My Lover Beside Me and Love, Nancy. She also records The Good and Bad Times with the Crusaders.

Personal life and advocacy

Williams marries drummer Kenneth C. Dennis in 1960, and they later divorce in 1970. She then marries minister Wiley Burton in 1974. She has children from both marriages. She also co-founds the Nancy Wilson Foundation, which brings inner-city children to the country, and supports organisations including the Martin Luther King Center for Social Change, the National Heart Association, the Cancer Society, the United Negro College Fund, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Operation PUSH, the Presidential Council for Minority Business Enterprises and the Committee for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.