Williams, Bert (1874?-1922), was a great African American comedian. Surviving photographs show Williams’s gift for comic facial expression. Recordings preserve his dry, biting humor in songs, many of which he wrote. His best-known songs are “Jonah Man,” “Woodman, Woodman, Spare that Tree,” and his theme song, “Nobody.”
Egbert Austin Williams was probably born in Nassau, Bahamas, and was brought to the United States as a child. He began his career in minstrel shows, a form of entertainment featuring black musicians or white musicians with blackened faces, performing black music. Because of his light skin, Williams darkened his face with burnt cork for performances, a practice he followed for the rest of his career.
About 1893, Williams formed a vaudeville comedy team with George Walker. The two appeared in and often coauthored musical comedies intended for black audiences. Williams and Walker starred in In Dahomey, the first musical written and performed by blacks to play in a regular New York City theater when it opened there in 1903. Williams later became the first black entertainer featured in an otherwise all-white show, the 1910 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies. Williams died on March 4, 1922.
