Founding Fathers: Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams

Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams Wrote One of Johnny Paycheck's Biggest Hits, "She's All I Got" (Single Sleeve, Mankind Records, 1971)

One of the music industry’s more colorful characters, Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams is a singer, songwriter and producer who’s also a founding father of rock, R&B and country.

Born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1942, Jerry Williams started his recording career in 1954, spinning discs under the names “Little Jerry,” “Little Jerry Williams” and, finally, “Jerry Williams.”

In 1970, he took on the name “Swamp Dogg” and released his debut record, Total Destruction to Your Mind. Over the course of the next 30+ years, Williams recorded with several different labels, most recently on his own SDEG imprint where he dropped Give Em as Little as You Can … as Often as You Have To .. .or … A Tribute to Rock ‘n’ Roll a couple of years ago.

Along with his own records, Williams is a noted songwriter (he co-penned Johnny Paycheck‘s “She’s All I Got”) and producer (including soul artists Doris Duke, Irma Thomas and Arthur Conley).

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Black Music says his productions were for performers who were “artistically superior if commercially modest.”

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