Pianist gives all fans the presidential treatment

By Jerry Fink

Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Roger Williams has been playing the piano for more than 80 years. Williams, who’ll be 85 on Oct. 1, began playing at 3 years old. He takes his annual sojourn in the Entertainment Capital this weekend, playing such classics as “Autumn Leaves” and “Born Free” at the South Point.

1. First break

Williams was scheduled to provide accompaniment for a Juilliard vocalist on “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” The vocalist didn’t appear at the studio, leaving the pianist to play solo. Dave Kapp, the head of Kapp Records, heard Williams on the show and was impressed. Kapp signed the pianist to a contract and had him change his name from Louis Wertz to Roger Williams, borrowing it from the theologian who founded Rhode Island.

2. First hit

In 1955 his single “Autumn Leaves” reached No. 1 on the U.S. charts. That began a streak of 22 hit singles that ran through 1969; he had two other Top 10 hits, “Near You” in 1958 and “Born Free” in 1966. Williams was equally successful on the album charts, racking up a total of 38 hit records from 1956 to 1972, including the Top 10 albums “Songs of the Fabulous Fifties” (1957), “Till” (1958), “Maria” (1962) and “Born Free” (1966).

3. Numbers

Williams practices six hours a day. He has 116 albums to his credit, 18 of them gold or platinum. He says he can play 10,000 songs from memory.

4. Pianist to presidents

His first presidential recital was for Harry S. Truman, his last for George H.W. Bush. In between he played for Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. The one that impressed him the most? Truman. “He was so honest and so refreshing ... I remember Truman, they burned him in effigy around the country when he fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur (in 1951). I’ll take an ounce of respect in deference to 20 pounds of love, because respect has to be earned. Even if you don’t agree with some of these guys, you’ve got to respect them for being honest.”

5. Fan friendly

Williams likes to mingle, especially before a performance. He will join the arriving crowd and chat. The reason, he says, is that when he was a boy growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, he attended a piano concert by the Polish genius Ignacy Jan Paderewski. After the concert Williams waited for 45 minutes outside in the freezing cold to meet his idol. When the pianist finally appeared it was to rush to a waiting automobile. “I didn’t even get near enough to touch him or get an autograph,” Williams says. “It was then and there I resolved that if ever I became famous I would never disappoint anyone who wanted to talk to me.”