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[Live & On Record]

ANDRE WILLIAMS
MR. RHYTHM

The man they call " Mr. Rhythm " made his long-delayed Boston-area debut last Friday night at Johnny D’s in Somerville, a full 45 years after his hard-boiled, jive-talking rhythm-and-blues hit " Bacon Fat " put him on the map. Now in his 60s, Andre Williams is no less dapper, charismatic, or feisty than he was in the mid 1950s. " I’m a old dirty bastard, " he leered at a packed house, his nicotine-scarred baritone booming like a foghorn from under a heavy brow shaded by a red fedora. He wore a matching fire-engine-red suit set off by a black shirt and tie; by the end of his first song, a funky soul rave-up called " Hallelujah, " the jacket and hat were off, the tie had fallen loose over his shoulders, the shirt was unbuttoned, and Andre was off and running. Backed by a six-piece pick-up band — he’d brought along his own guitarist, a young Hawaiian named Zack Pike, but the rest were locals — and two female back-up singers, he picked his way through a résumé of hits and standards. " Hallelujah " rolled into " Proud Mary, " a reminder of his stint in the early ’70s producing Ike and Tina Turner — a gig Williams has said led to the severe drug addiction that sidelined him for more than a decade.

During " Shake a Tail Feather, " the rock-and-roll standard he wrote for the Five Du-Tones, he seemed to be toying with his backing group, stretching out a vamp so long that the befuddled musicians behind him fell out of synch. But an air of barely controlled chaos has been a hallmark of his music for nearly half a century: he’s at his best at the moments when things appear certain to fall apart. There were plenty of those moments at Johnny D’s, but Mr. Rhythm kept his cool, appearing in no fewer than three suits over the course of two lengthy sets.

The highlights were his bump-and-grind novelty hits. There was " Bacon Fat, " of course, a fractured doo-wop-inspired dance-craze number inspired by the image of " cotton pickers with they sacks on they backs " ; and in the night’s second set, he revisited his sleaziest early hit, " Jail Bait, " a film-noir tale of pulling prison time for being seduced by a young femme fatale. The material stretched from his first solo number, " Going Down to Tijuana, " and his early ballad " Just Because of a Kiss " right up to " She’s a Bag of Potato Chips, " a tune from his 1999 country album Red Dirt (Bloodshot). And though he played nothing from his excellent new Bait & Switch (Norton), he offered a preview of material he’s recording for a blues album on Boston’s Black Rose label: righteous versions of Jimmy Reed’s " Baby What You Want Me To Do " and Little Willie John’s " Fever " and a new funky-soul tune written especially for the occasion and called, yes, " Boston. "

BY CARLY CARIOLI

Issue Date: October 11 - 18, 2001