A voice as silky as butter, and a lesson from Charlie Parker

As a boy in North Philadelphia, Paul Williams soaked up his mother's record collection, which ran from Nat King Cole to jazz concerts. Years later, he remembered what he wanted from a voice: silky, like butter, mellow. He favoured female singers such as Nina Simone, Carmen McRae and Ella Fitzgerald, partly because they did more with their voices, and partly because they shared his high range.

He started young. At eleven he was singing on local radio station WPEN, and he studied at the West Philadelphia Music School and the Granoff School of Music. He liked to say that he had always wanted to be a saxophone player, so he treated his voice like a horn. At sixteen he played Club Harlem on the same bill as Charlie Parker, and recalled that Parker told him if he kept struggling he'd go a long way.

The name came later. To avoid confusion with songwriter Paul Williams and saxophonist Paul “Hucklebuck” Williams, his manager gave him the name Billy Paul during a stint warming up the Apollo for six weeks. He went to New York to record for Jubilee Records in 1952 and kept building a reputation in clubs and on college campuses.

His moment arrived with the Philadelphia soul sound shaped by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell. In 1972 his single “Me and Mrs. Jones” reached number one, and he is known for a vocal style that could move from mellow and soulful to low and raspy. His 1973 album and single War of the Gods mixed pop, soul and funk with electronic and psychedelic influences,.

Questlove of the Roots has compared Paul with Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, calling him “one of the criminally unmentioned proprietors” of socially conscious civil rights music. It is a fair prompt to listen again to a voice that always wanted to sound like nobody but itself.