You might think that Deniece Williams popped onto the music scene with her smash hit “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” in 1984, but she was making records since the late 1960s and is still performing today. Her success was not limited to the American music scene but earned her recognition as “one of the great soul voices” in 2012 in a BBC column.
Williams was born June Deniece Chandler on June 3, 1950, in Gary, Indiana, to Alma, a nurse, and Lee Chandler, a security guard. Both of her parents sang in their church, and two of her siblings have been involved in the music industry from time to time. While her Pentecostal upbringing restricted what types of music she was supposed to listen to, her favorite singers, Carmen McRae and Nancy Wilson, were jazz vocalists, with Wilson having cross-over success. Williams was gifted with an amazing voice, a coloratura soprano with a four-octave range, making her rare among singers. Growing up, Williams sang with four different church choirs because of the quality of her voice.
Her school and community in Gary were integrated to a level that Williams had friends and classmates from different racial and ethnic groups, which she called a “melting pot.” Like other kids in her neighborhood, she grew up watching television, which probably explains her exposure to the non-religious music of Doris Day, Lena Horne, and even the Jackie Gleason Orchestra. It was her high school math teacher who owned the record shop where she worked and got her thinking about music as a career. Her first record, Love is Tears/I’m Walking Away, was released in 1968. That record, along with six other singles from Toddlin’ Town 107, were not big hits, but they did get her some notice.
While she was making singles, she was also going to college, following in her mother’s career path, training in nursing. Sources are mixed about where she went to university, citing both Purdue University and Morgan State University; of the two, Purdue was in her home state of Indiana and closer to Chicago, where her first record company was located, so that seems more reasonable.
She was part of the Wonderlove, the band that toured and recorded with Stevie Wonder in the early 1970s. Williams also sang backup vocals for other singers such as Esther Phillips and Roberta Flack. She also married her first husband, Ken Williams, and had her first two children with him from 1971-1975.
Then in 1976, under the direction of Maurice White from Earth, Wind, & Fire, Williams signed with Columbia. Her first album, This is Niecy, had three R&B and Hot 100 hits: “Free,” “Cause You Love Me Baby,” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” Six of the eight songs on her first major album were co-written by Williams with Thom Bell; she wrote the lyrics, while he created the music. Sadly, their collaboration only lasted for one more album before Williams turned back toward gospel for several events, though not yet in terms of record making. Her second marriage, to actor and preacher Christipher Joy, lasted from 1981 to 1982, for about a year and a half.
Williams continued to make the music charts, but her biggest worldwide hit was undeniably “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,”from the soundtrack to Footloose. The song, also the title track from her 8th album, is still played on “oldies” and 80s stations today. The single went to number one on both the Pop and Black music charts and earned enough sales to go platinum, helping the film soundtrack make #9 on the Billboard Top 10 for 1984.
She went back to her roots once more and started releasing gospel albums in the second half of the 1980s, with So Glad I Know in 1986. During that time she married her third husband and the father of two more of her sons, Brad Westerling, who was a music producer. With four sons and years of experience as a mother, Williams released Lullabies to Dreamland in 1991. By 1993, that marriage had also ended in divorce.
Album making slowed down for Williams in the late 1990s. She continued acting, with eleven credits so far on IMDb, but also worked on soundtracks, compositions, and performances for various projects. Her songs are republished from time to time on compilation albums. She has kept quite busy despite not topping the charts year after year. In 2007, she did have a top-40 hit on the Adult R&B Singles chart with “Grateful,” a song with Wanda Vaughn and Sherree Brown.
So far, Williams has released 19 albums, ranging from easy listening to soul and from pop to gospel. She has 275 writing and arrangement credits so far and has been producing her own and others’ music since 1979. She has won four Grammys and had 13 nominations as of 2020; all four of her wins have been for gospel music, though her pop and R&B performances have been nominated. To hear more of her music and see more of her performances, check out her YouTube Channel.