Paul Williams

Who was Paul Williams?

Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams was an American blues and rhythm and blues saxophonist and songwriter. In his Honkers and Shouters, Arnold Shaw credits Williams as one of the first to employ the honking tenor sax solo that became the hallmark of rhythm and blues and rock and roll in the 1950s and early 1960s.

After performing with Clarence Dorsey and King Porter he formed his own band in 1947. He was best known for his 1949 hit, "The Hucklebuck", a twelve-bar blues that also spawned a dance craze. The single went to number one on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart. He used the billing of Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers thereafter.

Williams' recording was covered by Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, as well as by R&B artists Roy Milton and Lionel Hampton, but Williams' Savoy recording was still the best-selling rhythm and blues song of the year. Shaw points out that "The Hucklebuck" was an early example of crossover from R&B to mainstream popular music. The Williams version sold half a million copies by some estimates.

In later years, during the rock era, in 1960, Chubby Checker peaked at number fourteen with his version of the song, while in 1963 Brendan Bowyer and the Royal Showband became the first Irish artists to top the Irish singles chart with their cover, staying at the top for seven weeks. British Rockabilly band Coast to Coast reached number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1981 with a cover called " the Hucklebuck". In 2010, Crystal Swing had a hit with the song.