Sharrie Williams

Sharrie Williams was born and raised in the projects of Saginaw, Michigan, and grew up surrounded by music and singing her entire childhood, being raised in a musical family. “My Aunt and Grandma were jazz singers, my father was a gospel/jazz singer in the 1950s and 1960s, my brother is a gospel singer and my mother was a gospel singer. Our house was like a Juke Joint……Singing, drinking, dancing, and the blues playing, with chicken and fish frying.”

Sharrie began singing at the age of twelve with the Greater Williams Temple C.O.G.I.C. church choir, recording and touring, under the direction of Hubert J. Williams, she performed with Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Shirley Caesar, The Winans, and James Cleveland.

She teamed up with The Wise Guys in 1997 and began appearing regularly at Chicago’s renowned Blues Clubs such as Kingston Mines and Buddy Guy’s Legends.
 By 1998 Sharrie Williams and The Wiseguys were on their way to Europe. They started with performances in Germany, and by 2004 they had toured Holland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and Great Britain. 

Williams has performed in blues festivals, clubs, and cathedrals such as Buddy Guys Legends, Kingston Mines, Terra Blues, Biscuit & Blues, Poconos Blues Festival, North Atlantic Blues Festival, Mount Tremblant Blues Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Utrecht, Peer and many other festivals in the USA as well as Europe. Over her years Sharrie has had the opportunity to collaborate with national recording artists such as Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Guy, Larry Garner, KoKo Taylor, Holmes Brothers Bobby Blue Bland, Joanna Conner, Delbert McClinton, Jonny Taylor, Ruth Brown, Ike Turner, Charlie Musselwhite, Taj Mahal, Honeyboy Edward’s, Solomon Burke, Lucky Peterson, Robert Randolph, Ruthie Foster, Robin Rogers, Deitra Farr Shemika Copland, Betty Lavette, and Jeniva Magness.

Chevrolet featured her as, artist of the month in Jet, Ebony, Black Enterprise, Essence, and Emerge with an open face spread, a famous photo by Grammy award-winning photographer, Tom Bert. She has been featured in Big City Blues and Living Blues, Blues Revue. Sharrie has been on the front cover of British Blues and French magazine Blues Feeling. Sharrie has been featured in several European magazines, such as Juke Blues, Soul Bag, Block, IL Blues, German Blues News, and Rollin & Tumballin. 

In January 2007, Sharrie signed a recording contract with the Canadian-based Blues label Electro-Fi Records. 

Sharrie was nominated in 2009 & 2012 Soul Blues Artist of the Year, she was also nominated in 2008 as Traditional Blues Artist of the Year, she is also the 2012 recipient of L’Academie du Jazz Album of the Year held in Paris France

(Sharrie Williams at 12th Annual Poconos Blues Festival 2003)