Ink

The Indelible J. Mayo Williams

Clifford R. Murphy

$460.95 $368.44

Hardback

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English

University of Illinois Press
14 April 2025

Jazz; Blues

Series: Music in American Life

The product of a hardscrabble childhood, J. Mayo “Ink” Williams parlayed an Ivy League education into unlikely twin careers as a foundational producer of Black music and pioneering Black player in the early NFL. Clifford R. Murphy tells the story of an ambitious, upwardly mobile life affected, but never daunted, by white society’s racism or the Black community’s class tensions. Williams caroused with Paul Robeson, recorded the likes of Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and lined up against Chicago Bears player-coach George Halas. Though resented by the artists he exploited, Williams combined a rock-solid instinct for what would sell with an ear for music that put him at the forefront of finding, recording, and blending blues and jazz. Murphy charts Williams’s wide-ranging accomplishments while providing portraits of the cutthroat recording industry and the possibilities, however constrained, of Black life in the 1920s and 1930s.

Vivid and engaging, Ink brings to light the extraordinary journey of a Black businessman and athlete.

By: Clifford R. Murphy
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780252045882
ISBN 10: 0252045882
Series: Music in American Life
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 14 April 2025
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Clifford R. Murphy is a musician and ethnomusicologist. He is a founding member of the rock band Say ZuZu, the director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and the author of Yankee Twang: Country and Western Music in New England.

Reviews for Ink: The Indelible J. Mayo Williams

"""Mayo 'Ink' Williams may be the most important figure you've never heard of from the world of early blues music. In this unprecedented biography, Clifford R. Murphy, with a musician's ear, a writer's touch, and an historian's mastery of subject, brings to life this shape-shifting and monumental figure from the heyday of the blues.""--Dave Sheinin, writer, Washington Post"