Maurice Williams, R&B Vocal Group Frontman, Passes

E. Mark Windle 6 August 2024.

The passing of Maurice Williams, frontman for the R&B vocal group Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, has just been confirmed by North Carolina sources.

Williams was originally from Lancaster, SC. His group involvement was a long one, commencing with the Royal Charms in the early fifties, then the Junior Harmonizers and the Gladiolas. The Gladiolas hit pay dirt in 1957 with “Little Darlin’ ” for Excello. An important milestone for Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs was “Stay”, released in 1960 on Al Silver’s New York Herald Records. “Stay” went straight to #1, was a huge early beach music hit and is now an established doo-wop classic, and has since been covered by The Four Seasons, Jackson Browne and others. Decades later the original was given a further lease of life via the Dirty Dancing movie soundtrack. Another couple of Herald releases followed in the early sixties with variable degrees of success, until “May I” became their second local radio and beach hit. The Zodiacs also released two LPs in the sixties, namely “Stay” on Herald in 1960/61, and a live LP recorded at Myrtle Beach in 1965.

Marshall Sehorn was a student at North Carolina State University before working for Bobby Robinson as the southern promotion man for Fire and Fury labels from the late 1950s onwards.  When these labels folded Sehorn and partner Allen Toussaint founded the Sansu, Deesu and Tou-Sea labels and the Sea-Saint Recording Studios in New Orleans, between 1963 and 1966. Sehorn and Toussaint released Williams on their Deesu label, producing a few fine northern soul winners in the mid sixties with the group and as a solo artist; “Being Without You” (Deesu 302), “Don’t Ever Leave Me” (Deesu 309) and “How to Pick a Winner” (Deesu 311). Another soul track on yet another related label from around this time was “Return” (Sea-horn 503), a sparse recording sounding much earlier than its release date (circa 1964). Gladys Knight and the Pips reportedly appeared on backing. The flip, “My Baby’s Gone”, is a dramatic beat ballad and an admirable demonstration of Williams’ vocal quality. A later release, given the big city soul production treatment, was “Nobody Knows” on Scepter (SCE 12113), yet another Sehorn production. A second track destined for a Scepter release, but one which never actually materialised, was the mid tempo “Look My Way”. Nat Speir, co-founder of The Rivieras, remembers playing baritone sax on this one, recorded at Arthur Smith’s Studios in Charlotte in 1966 or 1967. “Look my way” eventually surfaced in the UK more than 20 years later via the various artists compilation LP “Soul Cities” (Kent 089) and on the Kent CD “Living the Nightlife” (CDKEND 104).

Nat Speir described his musical involvement with Maurice Williams:

“Maurice and his group covered the typical territory of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida and parts of Kentucky. I played baritone sax and guitar with the Zodiacs in the early to mid sixties, and did some sessions with Maurice in Charlotte and New York. He and I got together a number of times to write some songs, though I don’t think anything came of that. My friend (Bob Meyer) and I worked on the side with the Zodiacs. We went with Maurice to New York to record possible follow-ups for “Stay”. Bob sang three songs written by Maurice, and I played sax. Recording in New York at Beltone Studios, in the same room in which Ray Charles, The Drifters and many others recorded, was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill for a 17-year-old white boy. We rehearsed above Small’s Paradise in Harlem, and rubbed elbows with the likes of Gladys Knight and King Curtis. Horace Ott was to be the arranger, and Jimi Hendrix was the rhythm guitarist, added to beef-up the bass. He was an unknown at that time. One never knows about these things, but nothing came of all this work.”

Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs continued to perform on the beach music oldies circuit throughout the seventies and eighties, while living in Charlotte, NC. On the back of the popularity of Dirty Dancing (which provided another eight million in sales of “Stay”) he remained active touring the south east states, and had a number of appearances on Pittsburg PBS TV specials.

(Copyright 2024) E. Mark Windle is an independent freelance writer and biographer. He has also worked on multiple book projects as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter with Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA).