It's Never Too Late

Alabama-born Andre Williams migrated to Chicago with his parents only to be returned to the South when his mother died in 1943. Finding that comeback infelicitous, he made his way back to his steel-mill-worker father in the Windy City, which is where his troubles began—a brief stint of juvenile delinquency and an enlistment in the Navy, from which he was discharged when it was learned he was underage. Williams landed in Detroit where joined The 5 Dollars and Fortune records, penning his immortal hit,“Jailbait.”

Williams went on to work at Motown records, experiencing all the highs and the lows of success in the music business. His career was resurrected in 1995 by George Paulus, who produced Williams’s comeback album Greasy. Unfortunately, his resurrection also facilitated his return to substance abuse, requiring frequent rehabilitations. The 2007 film Agile, Mobile, Hostile tells William’s riveting story.

During these rehab bouts he began to write fiction—ultimately the product of that rehabilitation is Sweets and Other Stories (Kicks Books). The inestimable Nick Toshes (Never Trust A Living God), who wrote the book’s foreword, offers:

By the way, for you inhabitants of the Universe’s Center of Ambition, Tosches and Williams do a reading on February 5th presented by The Poetry Project at St Mark’s Church.