Maurice Williams, songwriter and vocalist of Stay, dies at age 86

NEW YORK (AP) — Maurice Williams, a rhythm and blues singer-songwriter who, together with his band the Zodiacs, became one of the largest one-time acts in music with the classic ballad “Stay,” has died. He was 86.

According to an announcement from the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, Williams died on August 6, but no further details were provided.

Williams, who had been a author and performer since childhood, was performing in various harmony groups when he began studio sessions with the Zodiacs in 1960.

At the tip, they unexpectedly made history with their recording “Stay”, which Williams had written several years earlier as an adolescent.

With his co-vocalists chanting “Stay!”, Williams channeled most of the song and its appeal to an unnamed girl. Halfway through, he stepped back and gave the result in Shane Gaston and one of rock’s most unforgettable falsetto cries—“OH, WON’T YOU STAY, JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER!”

The song, at just over 1 minute and 30 seconds long, was one of the shortest hits of the rock era. It reached primary on the Billboard charts in 1960 and was the band’s only major success.

However, the song was initially covered by bands resembling The Hollies and the Four Seasons, in addition to other acts who made it an old favourite, most notably when Jackson Browne sang it live to tell the tale his 1977 album Running On Empty.

“Stay” was also performed by Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and others at the 1979 No Nukes concert at Madison Square Garden, and its original version was included on the 1987 hit Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

The song was inspired by his teenage crush, Mary Shropshire.

“(Mary) was the one I tried to get to stay a little longer,” Williams told the North Carolina publication Our State in 2012. “Of course she couldn’t.”

Williams’ profession was otherwise a story of disappointment. He wrote one other falsetto outing, “Little Darlin’,” and recorded it in 1957 with the Gladiolas. But the song became successful for a white group, the Diamonds. In 1965, Williams and the Zodiacs recorded a promising ballad, “May I.” But their record company, Vee-Jay, went bankrupt just before the song’s release, and “May I” later became successful for an additional white group, Bill Deal & the Rhondels.

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Like many early rock stars, Williams became a fixture on the concert circuit and on tributes and recorded albums like “Let This Night Last” and “Back to Basics.” He settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, and was elected to the state Hall of Fame in 2010. He is survived by his wife, Emily.

Williams was born in Lancaster, South Carolina, and sang with members of the family in church growing up. He was an adolescent when he formed a gospel group, the Junior Harmonizers, which became the Royal Charms because it evolved into secular music, and then the Zodiacs after the Ford automobile they used on the road. In the meantime, he was a prolific author and needed little time to finish what became his signature hit.

“It took me about thirty minutes to write ‘Stay,’ and then I threw it out,” he later told www.classicsbands.com. “We were looking for songs to record as Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. I was at my girlfriend’s house, playing a tape of songs I had written, and her little sister said, ‘Please do a song with a high voice.’ I knew she meant ‘Stay.’ She was about 12, and I said, ‘She’s of record-buying age,’ and the rest is history. Thank God for her.”