The East Bay was the childhood home of a once well-known popular singer, "Midge" Williams, who is now remembered only by a few record collectors and fans of 1930s swing music. But in the 30s she was often compared favorably with such contemporaries as Maxine Sullivan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ivy Anderson, and Billie Holiday. Born May 27, 1915, while her parents were on a trip in Portland, Oregon, Midge Williams was named Virginia Louise after her mother. Her three brothers, John Lewis, Jr., Charles, and Robert were all born in Alameda, California. Their maternal great-grandfather was Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, the "Moses of the Colored Exodus." Singleton was one of the two most prominent leaders of the organized migrations of African Americans out of the post-Reconstruction terror and poverty of the South. Benjamin's son, Joshua, eventually came to Allensworth, an African American agricultural community in Tulare County,

California, with his wife Henrietta, and their three children, Van, Henry, and Virginia Louise, who married John Lewis Williams. John Lewis, Jr., Midge, Charles, and Robert grew up in Alameda, Oakland, and Berkeley. Sometime in the mid-1920s they began singing as the "Williams Quartette" in Bay Area churches and theaters. They caught the attention of Peggy O'Neill of the Fanchon and Marco stage productions organization, who taught them to dance. Renamed "The Williams Four", they began touring West Coast theaters with Fanchon and Marco/the organization in the summer of 1928.

In 1933, Roger Segure, a young music student and pianist told Virginia Williams that he would like to manage "The Williams Four". She agreed, and he obtained a contract for "The Williams Four" to appear at the exclusive Canidrome in Shanghai, China. From a successful appearance there, they went to Japan, where they appeared at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and at the Florida Dance Hall. In February 1934, Midge made the first five sides of her recording career for Japanese Columbia, singing in both Japanese and English.

Back home in San Francisco, the group performed at the Edgewater Beach and on radio. On August 25, "The Williams Four" came to a tragic end when Charles Williams died of an accidental gunshot wound. "The Williams Four" career was over and Midge began a solo career, quite successfully, on radio.

In the spring of 1936, Midge Williams and her manager, Roger Segure, went to New York, were Midge debuted at the Apollo. During her time in that city she was a guest artist on a number of coast-to-coast radio shows. She also had a series of fifteen minute weekly or twice-weekly radio shows of her own and appeared on thirty-five sides of records she made for various record labels. The musicians she worked with included Bunny Berigan, Ben Webster, Teddy Wilson, Harry James, Glenn Miller, Raymond Scott, Buster Bailey, John Kirby, and Lil Armstrong. Roger Segure and the famed poet Langston Hughes collaborated to write two songs for Midge, one of which, Night Time, served as her radio program's theme song. Midge also performed at benefits and participated in the social life of Harlem.

In March 1938, Midge joined Louis Armstrong's troupe and toured with him until January 1941. Leaving him for a hospital bed in Detroit, Midge eventually recovered, but newspaper reports of her working again did not appear until early in 1942 in Chicago. By July 1942, she was back in New York and in September was reported singing on the radio. The last appearance of her name in the New York Amsterdam News occurred on July 1, 1943. Nothing more is known until her guest appearance on the Jack Webb show from KFRC in San Francisco in April 1946. There she sang Cow-Cow Boogie and was apparently in good voice.

Six years later, on January 9, 1952, Midge Williams passed away from tuberculosis at the San Francisco General Hospital. Today, her ashes rest high on a shelf in the California Room of the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland.

The African American Museum and Library at Oakland has a two-CD set on which all but two of Midge Williams' records, plus three of her radio appearance, can be heard. The discographies in the liner notes of the CDs are correct, but later research has shown that some of the information in the Midge Williams biography in the liner notes is not correct.

This and other "hidden treasures" can be found at the African American Museum and Library at
Oakland (AAMLO). Please call for an appointment at 510-637-0198.

JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2003