By Richard Harrington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 31, 1999; Page C01

Joe Williams's signature tune may have been "Every Day I Have the Blues," but it was not the blues that defined him. Instead, it was the heart-and-soul jubilance invested in every performance he gave. Those who heard this most masculine of singers were uplifted by a warm, lusty bass-baritone given to romantic ballads, jazz standards and pop tunes, as well as the blues ballads that were his special province.

What's so shocking about Joe Williams's death Monday at age 80 -- the singer collapsed in Las Vegas after walking away from a hospital he'd been admitted to a week ago for a respiratory ailment -- is that he had for so long been the embodiment of musical vitality and creative consistency. And Williams had been so over the course of a 60-year career that began on the South Side of Chicago and eventually took him around the world as one of the great ambassadors of American jazz and blues.

Over the decades, the singer refined a hard-driving style reflective of his apprenticeship in big bands, Count Basie's in particular. His phrasing was authoritative, his enunciation as perfect as his taste was impeccable. He was an engaging monologuist, with a penchant for bawdiness that never descended to mere rudeness.

Though known for up-tempo tunes, an unre lenting sense of swing and spirited interactions with stellar jazz soloists -- biographer Lesley Gourse described his approach as "brazen as brass . . . without seeming to be anything but natural" -- Williams was also a masterful balladeer with a delivery that could be smooth as silk and spark like cashmere.

"Speaking of bad luck and trouble, I have my share," Williams sang in "Every Day I Have the Blues," which he recorded with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1955. He'd certainly had his share growing up poor in Chicago -- Williams had to start working at age 10 to help his mother -- but even as those experiences informed the blues that remained an essential part of his repertoire, Williams favored a positive approach to life.

Fifteen years ago, when Williams was sharing a week of Georgetown club dates with the venerable Billy Eckstine -- one was at Blues Alley, the other at Charlie's -- he talked about the hopeful effect his music had on people:

"When a man is holding a woman in his arms and something you sing causes them to hold each other a little closer, feel love for each other, feel their desire for each other and make a decision about how they're going to live the rest of their lives together because of it . . . then they'll always look at you warmly together."

Joe Williams was born in Cordele, Ga., in 1918, but it was Chicago that forged him after his mother moved there three years later to escape the segregated South. The youngster was groomed in a church where Negro spirituals held sway, and where he encountered the first great singers whose influence would shape his own inimitable style. Williams was also exposed to the rhythmic urban blues prevalent on the city's South Side, to blues shouters like Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing, and to the first wave of big-band singers, notably Herb Jeffries (in Earl Hines's and Duke Ellington's bands), Pha Terrell (Andy Kirk) and Dan Grissom (Jimmie Lunceford).

When he was 17, Williams started sitting in with local bands, and by the late '30s landed his first major job, in the nightly national broadcasts out of Chicago of Jimmy Noone's Orchestra. The '40s brought stints with the bands of Coleman Hawkins and Lionel Hampton (whose other featured vocalist was Dinah Washington), as well as smaller blues and jazz ensembles.

The singer's big break came in 1954, when he joined the Count Basie Orchestra and soon after recorded "Every Day" for the album "Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings." That title became the band's motto for the next seven years, during which Williams recorded other classic titles -- "Alright, Okay, You Win," "Teach Me Tonight," "Roll 'Em Pete" -- and first began winning awards that would eventually clutter his garage back home in Las Vegas. The Basie band was the hardest-swinging outfit of its time and Williams was its most public face; Basie called him his "Number One Son." Forty years later, Williams still called his old boss and friend "Mr. Basie."

With Basie's blessing, Williams embarked on a solo career in 1961, though they often performed together until Basie's death in 1984. Williams's own workload never lightened -- until recently, he still worked 40 weeks a year -- and he became a welcome fixture at clubs and concerts, jazz cruises and festivals, working with small ensembles, big bands and symphony orchestras (he was a frequent soloist with the NSO).

He was also known as one of the warmest, most engaging personalities in the entertainment world, totally lacking in affectations. There was about him the suavity and elegance of a world traveler who'd known both the royalty of American jazz -- Dukes, Counts, Earls and Lady Days -- and that of foreign lands.

Washington jazz artist Shirley Horn, who'd known Williams for decades (they once shared the same manager), recalled a cruise on the SS Norway that both worked on just last year.

"He was so much fun and we had some wonderful musical moments," Horn said yesterday, recalling the singer's inherent tenderness. "Joe had strength and charm even with the blues, but he always wanted to sing ballads. He was a big man, a forceful man, but you'd hear these lovely notes coming out at you."

For 60 years, that was Joe Williams's gift. Thanks to hundreds of recordings, it's now his legacy as well. And every day, we have Joe Williams.