Jazz great Joe Williams praised in Las Vegas services

Robert Macy

Thursday, April 8, 1999 | 9:22 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - Legendary jazz singer Joe Williams was eulogized as an extraordinary talent who touched a multitude of lives, but never lost the common touch.

"Joe's head never got as big as his talent," longtime friend Bob Udkoff said Wednesday. "He could even make a telephone book sound good."

Williams, 80, died March 29 when he left his hospital bed and tried to walk three miles to his home.

Williams, who performed with every great jazz artist of the past half-century, was equally at home "at an inner-city club or the White House," Udkoff told an overflow crowd at memorial services for the jazz icon.

Singer Robert Goulet told friends and family that Williams was "one of the few good friends I ever had."

Goulet drew laughter as he recounted golf outings with his longtime friend.

He said he declined to sing at the services because he was afraid he'd lose his composure.

"I'm a bit of a sissy in such matters," Goulet said.

Goulet ended his eulogy by reading a poem he'd written shortly after learning of his friend's death.

"His memory will live as long as our memories live," Goulet said in closing.

Singer Nancy Wilson expressed her love for Williams and said she had enjoyed working with him through the years. Her voice quivered as she sang the lyrics "Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me home."

The Rev. Richard Walter, minister at the First Church of Religious Science, told of talking with Williams and his wife, Jillean, after a recent church service. He said Williams may have had a premonition, talking of three close friends who had died recently.

Then, the minister said, Williams reached down and took his wife's hand.

"Like a good horse, I know my way home," he told the minister.

Williams died of natural causes. He had walked nearly three miles and was a few blocks from his home on the city's east side when he collapsed and died.

"He wanted to get out of the hospital desperately," Jillean Williams said at the time of his death.

Williams performed alongside every great jazz artist of the past half century, including Count Basie, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan.

He earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and won a Grammy for his album "Nothing but the Blues."

Williams' appeal stretched to other mediums: He played Bill Cosby's father-in-law, Grandpa Al, on "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s. He and Cosby were friends, and the childhood memories Grandpa Al spun on the show were his own from Chicago.

At the time of Williams' death, President Clinton called the singer a national treasure.

Williams and Basie played together from 1954 to 1961, and Williams often performed with Basie until his death in 1984. Williams dedicated his renditions of "You Are So Beautiful" to Basie.

In his later years, Williams sang on cruise ships, at festivals, in hotels and clubs, working about 40 weeks a year.

He was active in various charity events in Las Vegas, the city he called home since 1967.

Williams began performing a stint at Jazz Alley in Seattle on March 16, but was hospitalized three days later with respiratory problems, his wife said. He returned to Las Vegas March 22 and was admitted to Sunrise Hospital for continued treatment.