• An attitude bad enough to redefine that term and a hustler’s life story that Elmore Leonard couldn’t invent.

    — Jim DeRogatis, WBEZ

  • I bought a couple Andre Williams CD's off your website, based solely upon your written glories about the guy. Sweet fucking god they didn't disappoint. You know how there's a feeling of being 'clean naked' and 'dirty naked'? Well, Williams is dirty naked, even when I'm fully dressed. I could never listen to his music in front of my mother, God no.

    — A Fan on Our Website

  • A long, long time ago -- before most of us were even alive to remember -- blues,R&B and rock'n'roll were dangerous, dirty and off-limits to anyone with hopes of fitting into proper society, flitting out of the windows of skeezy juke joints and bars on the outskirts of town. It was primal. It was honest. Mostly, it was fun. Thank God Williams is around to remind us of that halcyon era.

    — Aversion.com

  • Williams has twice the swagger and three times the guts of almost anyone a third of his age.

    — Tucson Weekly

  • Andre Williams, ladies and gentlemen: one of the last living links to the heyday of dirty R&B, super-soul and first generation booty funk. And certainly one of the few left who still brings it like he means it, every time. He's as real as it gets.

    — Blurt

  • He's a masterful teller of tales, and the tales he tells are powerful thought-provoking, and enjoyable.

    — Big Takeover
Hometown: 
Chicago, IL

Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams is a R&B legend, and you may not even know it. He wrote "Shake A Tail Feather," and sang such uber-raunch cult classics as "Bacon Fat" (covered by the Cramps), "Greasy Chicken," and the epitome of songs about little girls, "Jail Bait." He worked at seminal labels such as Motown, Chess, and Fortune. He wrote songs for, or produced folks Ike Turner, Parliament/Funkadelic, Edwin Starr and Stevie Wonder. The guy is like music's version of Zelig; he's been everywhere, man. Yeah, baby.

After a few hard years in... er... retirement, he stormed back in the late 90's with a record of smutty garage punk called Silky recorded with members of the Demolition Doll Rods and the Dirtbombs. Since then he has recorded with the Sadies, Jon Spencer, The New Orleans Hellhounds, Two-Star Tabernacle (which included a very young Jack White) and many others. His resurgence of popularity (and notoriety) continues as he tours the world, bringing his singular, yet chameleon-like style to a whole new world of unsuspecting admirers.

He was the subject of a documentary, Agile, Mobile, Hostile that premiered at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. Andre tells it like it is, and if you get all bashful and shit with the blue language, you might want to steer clear--this guy can make Redd Foxx (who gave him his nickname, by the way) look like Mr. Rogers. Don't let the shtick fool you, though, the man has put together some of the most bad-ass soul shakers in the history of music. He strips away all the bells and whistles and shoots musical arrows right to your goodie spot. Music at its most feral. 

Also, Andre's shows generally feature at least one costume change. That can't be said about a lot of folks these days.

Compilation Tracks: 
Recommended if You Like: 
The Cramps
Barrence Whitfield & the Savages
Little Richard
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
The Dirtbombs
Charles Bradley

Similar Bloodshot Artists

  • JC Brooks Uptown Sound Bloodshot Records

    JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound

    With a sound that calls to mind a meeting of Otis Redding and the Stooges—JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound get crowds twisting and writhing on the floor--a post-punk reimagining of JB’s moves and MG’s grooves.

  • The Detroit Cobras

    Crawling out from the weed-choked lots of the once proud town, The Detroit Cobras whip out ass-shaking anthems to good times, wild times, and the high and lows of L-U-V; you best believe it and you best not mess with it.

  • Roger Knox

    Roger Knox, aka the Koori King of Country or Black Elvis is an Aboriginal Australian Country & Western singer with a honeyed bear hug of a voice. His music is powerful and moving, heartbreaking and hilarious, downtrodden and uplifting, suffused with longing, alienation, resilience and hope;
  • Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls Bloodshot Records

    Jon Langford

    The revelatory aspect of Jon's prolific body of work is that he's always treated punk rock as folk music and folk music, when it stays true to its roots, can be awful damn punk. Woody Guthrie pissed off as many, if not more, people than Johnny Rotten.

  • Gore Gore Girls

    Harnessing sheer rock power for the forces of good, the GORE GORE GIRLS strut their stuff with boldness and attitude, throwing down dirty grooves and instigating scenes of libertine abandon in nightclubs around the world.
  • Various Artists Bloodshot Records

    Various Artists

    Bloodshot compilations are a cheap and easy way to sample a wide range of fabulous sounds. Some of the bands and artists you've heard of, some you haven't, but it is always worth checking them all out.

  • Devil in a Woodpile

    Devil in a Woodpile, they play blues. They also play country. Ragtime. Hot Jazz. Hillbilly. It's all the same to them. It's all taken from the same deep, muddy well called American Music that existed long before interweb algorithms decided to sub-categorize the whole mess.
  • Dex Romweber Bloodshot Records

    Dex Romweber

    "Dex Romweber was and is a huge influence on my music. I owned all of his records as a teenager...he is one of the best kept secrets of the rock n roll underground." —Jack White (White Stripes, Raconteurs, Dead Weather)

  • The Sadies

    We like The Sadies because they can play ANYTHING better than anyone else. Surf, cool cowboy psychedelia, electric bluegrass, spaghetti western soundscapes, garage punk, whatever. They do it and do it the SADIES way.
  • Barrence Whitfield Bloodshot Records

    Barrence Whitfield and the Savages

    Barrence Whitfield is a full-throttle soul screamer in the spirit of Little Richard, Don Covay, and Solomon Burke...a performer so consumed with satisfying his audiences that he has been called 'crazed, frenetic and completely unhinged.'