Andre Williams “Black Godfather”

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I entered Spaceland shortly after the Flash Express started. I have been a fan of the Flash for a long time and Brian Waters and crew did not disappoint with funk/garage a la early Blues Explosion. They played an hour set before a break and then came back on as backing band for the Black Godfather. Andre Williams (who entered through the stage door while the band was building him up) is an interesting figure. In his long career he’s been on Chess Records, wrote songs for Stevie Wonder, Parliament and Funkadelic, worked with Ike Turner, battled drug addiction and homelessness, and released a long list of albums between 1960 and 2006. I first heard about Williams though his relationship with In the Red Records, the original home of the Ponys, the Black Lips, and Jay Reatard, and soon after, my old band had the chance of opening up for him and the Flash at Alex’s in Long Beach. His performance then blew me away. Last night he showed up in a blue suit with a red tie and a black fedora, and though now in his seventies, he looked as sharp as ever. He immediately broke into songs like “Jail Bait” and “Pass the Biscuits Please,” with a vocal style more talking than singing. And he’s an eternal ladies’ man: he’d slow the songs down to spout lines like, “Hey baby, you’re the apple of my eye! If you need anyone, call—winter, spring, summer, fall!” and then build back into heavy, murky guitars and shouted vocals. He’s an endearing old man, and he was at his best Wednesday night. I kept hearing allusions to a Safari Sam’s show this summer when he was unable to complete a song, but that wasn’t the case here. He exited the stage during a chant of “Pussy stank, but so do marijuana!” before returning for a brief encore.

— Daniel Clodfelter