Lenny Williams

Lenny Williams enjoyed an extensive solo trajectory, yet his reputation continues to rest primarily on the three-year stretch he spent fronting Tower of Power, a leading funk and soul group of the 1970s. Prior to that affiliation he had already launched a solo path, and after departing the celebrated Oakland ensemble in 1975 he returned to independent work. Born February 6, 1945, in Little Rock, AR, Williams began performing in church during childhood—the same setting that launched numerous R&B vocalists. Having relocated to Oakland, CA, at age fourteen, he initially intended to enter the Christian ministry, but later chose instead to build a career as a secular R&B artist. In 1969 Fantasy issued his debut single, the soul ballad “Lisa’s Gone,” which earned modest regional airplay in the Bay Area without becoming a major hit. After a follow-up release on the same label, Jerry Wexler brought him to Atlantic, where he cut a version of the Thom Bell/Linda Creed composition “People Make the World Go Round.” That recording might have succeeded commercially had the Stylistics’ celebrated rendition not reached the top of the charts first, preventing Atlantic from releasing Williams’ take. Michael Jackson also interpreted the song in the early 1970s, though with a different lyric set from the one the Stylistics popularized. The disappointment proved temporary; in 1972 Williams was recruited as Tower of Power’s new lead singer after Rick Stevens, renowned for his soaring delivery on the hit ballad “You’re Still a Young Man,” was convicted of murder. Williams’ three years with the band cemented his stature in soul and funk circles, highlighted by his vocals on such major tracks as “What Is Hip?,” “Don’t Change Horses (In the Middle of a Stream),” “This Time It’s Real,” and the ballad “So Very Hard to Go.” Although the association proved pivotal, he left in 1975 to concentrate fully on solo endeavors. Early Motown albums generated limited impact, yet his profile surged with the 1977 ABC release Choosing You, whose single “Shoo Doo Fu Fu Ooh!” helped push the project close to gold status in the United States. The follow-up, Spark of Love, also on ABC, became his first gold-certified solo album and featured the hit ballad “Cause I Love You.” Subsequent MCA efforts preceded a pair of recordings for the independent Rocshire label in 1983 and 1984; when the company collapsed, Williams lost a reported fifty-thousand-dollar advance. Disillusioned with the industry, he weighed retirement from singing and turned much of his attention to real-estate investments. In 1986 he signed with the short-lived indie Knobhill, distributed through Fantasy, and issued the album New Episode, which yielded the minor hit “Ten Ways of Loving You” that climbed to number 67 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart. Although his visibility diminished during the 1980s and 1990s compared with the previous decade, a devoted audience remained. He recorded the album Chill for Bellmark in 1994 and returned with Love Therapy on Volt/Fantasy in 2000.