Crate Digger: ANDRE WILLIAMS Jail Bait
Andre Williams Jail Bait (Fortune) 1957
Andre Williams belongs to another time. A man who has a six-decade career in music can’t fail to be from another time but it’s very hard to see a song with the content of ‘Jail Bait’ becoming a hit in 2019 the year of his passing.
However, in 1957 it was acceptable for someone to have a hit song about the perils of chasing Fifteen-year-old Girls and landing in front of a Judge. Jerry Lee married his 13-year-old cousin Myra after all.
For all its questionable subject matter, ‘Jail Bait’ is as perfect a slice of Detroit sleaze R&B as ever existed. Released on Fortune Records, a label/studio run from the back of a Detroit barbershop, it was a hit on the Billboard R&B 100, and although it echoed one of Williams’ earlier hits ‘Bacon Fat’, its staccato horns and rhythm section jousting with doo-wop backing and Williams own distinctive style of speak-singing to create a flavoursome pot of audible greasy stew.
Production values were dictated by cost at Fortune and as they had zero money in reality, the takes were quick and live, relying on the dexterity of the musicians and the strength of the song. And Williams was some songwriter, co-writing ‘Shake a Tail Feather’ and authoring both Stevie Wonder’s first hit ‘Thank You for Loving Me’ and ‘Twine Time’ for Alvin Cash.
But that was all still to come, an earlier time Jail Bait takes you into a world of male temptation where the regret and remorse are tempered by plenty of blame put onto the young girl, although the blame is not entirely placed on the ingenue. The narrator tells the subject many times he is in jail because he wouldn’t listen to the warnings he was given.
The genius is the overall feeling this song gives you. Williams and the band, either through luck or judgment, create a claustrophobic, suffocating groove, it’s mournful saxophone full of regret that makes you almost queasy. This combined with the all-knowing (it’s worth noting Williams was only 21 when he recorded this) narration of Williams himself, leaves you safe in the knowledge that this is a taboo subject he may have encountered on a more personal level than a mere observer.
This snarky all-knowing eye cast over the personal lives of others was a constant theme in Williams’ work, from the stunning ‘Going down to Tia Juana’ through ‘Bacon Fat’ onto the Late sixties offerings of ‘Rib Tips’ and ‘Pearl Time’ all the way to his late-career collaborations with Canadian country band The Sadies, Andre Williams always gave the impression he knew what was going on, and he probably always did.
ANDRE WILLIAMS Jail Bait
Album photo via Discogs // Artists photo via Marmoset Music // Spotify track, 2009 remaster
Written by Andre Williams
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