Call her Niecy. :-)
Deniece Williams might have ended up as just another anonymous backup singer, which is how she got her start in music - backing up Stevie Wonder. Instead, she got a record deal with Columbia Records and caught the attention of Earth, Wind & Fire leader Maurice White and his partner Charles Stepney. Her 1976 debut album This Is Niecy featured the single "Free," her first big success on the record charts. She won people's hearts with her bubbly, sweet vocal style.
Then someone had the brilliant idea to pair her with the legendary Johnny Mathis, and well, crikey me timbers, she went to the toppermost of the poppermost; their single "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" was number one on the Billboard singles chart for the week ending June 3, 1978, and it was only the third number-one song of 1978 not associated with the Bee Gees or their brother Andy Gibb ("Baby Come Back" by Player and "With a Little Luck" by Paul McCartney and Wings were the first two). Her collaboration with Mathis was so successful that they reunited in 1982 to record "Without Us," the theme song for the sitcom "Family Ties."
Ms. Williams would have several hits in the eighties, such as "Silly" and "It's Gonna Take a Miracle," followed by her biggest hit ever - 1984's "Let's Hear It For the Boy," from the movie Footloose. But when a new wave of pop divas diminished her profile, Ms. Williams turned to making gospel records, and she has been just as successful at that as she had been with pop, winning four Grammys for her gospel work, including the Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album award for her This Is My Song album in 1999.
Deniece Williams is the American answer to Britain's Linda Lewis (an earlier honoree on this blog). Like Linda Lewis, she can charm the birds out of the trees.
Let's hear it for the girl. :-)
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