Noted Kansas City jazz violinist and guitarist Claude “Fiddler” Williams is highlighted in this newest digitized entry in the UMKC Digital Special Collections. The photos range from the 1960s through the 2000s and cover the gamut of Williams career, personal life, and local ties to Kansas City.
Claude “Fiddler” Williams was born February 22, 1908 in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He began playing guitar, mandolin, banjo, and cello at the age of ten. After hearing a performance by legendary jazz violinist Joe Venuti, he decided to take up the violin. In 1927, he began his first professional engagement performing with Terrence Holder’s territory band the Dark Clouds of Joy in Oklahoma City. Williams stayed on after Holder was ousted by his sidemen and replaced by bassist Andy Kirk. The band then became known as the Clouds of Joy and enjoyed a great deal of success, largely due to the talents of the young pianist Mary Lou Williams. Claude Williams played on the Kirk band’s first recordings but was forced to leave around 1931 when ill health prevented him from completing a tour. Williams worked with the bands of Alphonse Trent in 1932, George E. Lee in 1933, and Chick Stevens in 1934-1935. After a brief stint with Nat “King” Cole and his brother, bassist Eddie Cole, in Chicago, he returned to Kansas City to join Count Basie’s band.
His star rose in the ’90s; he was featured on the television program CBS News Sunday Morning and performed at Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York. He also played at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton, played international festivals, and recorded several highly acclaimed CDs. He was also the first inductee of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. Entering his ninth decade, Williams was an active and venerated performer. On April 26, 2004, the venerable elder statesman of jazz died of pneumonia in Kansas City at age 96. He was the last surviving jazz musician to have recorded before 1930.
