On April 25, 1998 Andre Williams took the stage of Detroit's Magic Stick and blew the place apart.Fronting an all-star garage band featuring Jim Diamond, the Gories' Danny Kroha and Mick Collins (who at the time was playing with Diamond in the Dirtbombs), and the Detroit Cobras' Jeff Meir, Andre was touring his album Silky that had been released earlier that year on In the Red.Diamond, who recorded the performance, recently unearthed the DAT tape and has uploaded "Car With the Star", one of Silky's many highlights, onto Soundcloud.By this stage of his career Williams knew all about dealing with cars with stars having spent most of the 80s and 90s out of music and living on the streets thanks to a severe drug problem. But by the mid 90s he'd cleaned himself up and was back releasing wild and greasy albums like Silky.Zephire "Andre" Williams, who turned 80 earlier this week, and who'd have been 62 at the time of the Magic Stick show, was born in Bessemer, Alabama. At the age of 16 set out on his own to Detroit and started a music career recording and writing songs including a co-writing credit on Stevie Wonder's first song "Thank You for Loving Me."He resurrected his career in the mid 90s with wild soul punk and hooking up with Collins and Kroha, wrote and recorded Silky, a debauched and dirty ode to stomping sleaze.As he says at the start of the song, "They've been calling me a dirty old man. Am I really?"Have a listen and make up your own mind .
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