Roger Williams

Roger Williams was an American popular music pianist once described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the most popular instrumentalists of the mid-20th century". Williams starting playing piano at the age of 3 and ss a young man, played organ music in his father's St. John's Lutheran Church in Des Moines and piano at the supper club, Babe's Restaurant. Williams majored in piano at Drake University in Des Moines, where he began developing a style that was a fusion of jazz, classical, and pop, but was expelled for playing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in the practice room in violation of the school's classical-music-only policy. Williams entered the United States Navy and served in World War II. While still in the Navy he won the middleweight boxing championship at his base in Idaho and earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Idaho State College (now Idaho State University) in 1950. Afterward, Williams re-enrolled at Drake, where he earned his master's degree in music in 1951. He then moved to New York City to attend Juilliard where he studied jazz piano under Lennie Tristano and Teddy Wilson. When it was all said and done, Williams had 22 hit singles – including the chart-topping "Autumn Leaves" in 1955 and "Born Free" in 1966 – 38 hit albums between 1955 and 1972, played for 9 Presidents, and on his 75th birthday he performed his first of many 12-hour piano marathon.