Warner Williams

Warner Williams and Jay Summerour are an American folk duo, who sometimes performed under the name "Little Bit of Blues". They have played at a number of folk and blues festivals, as well as at concerts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. until Williams's death in 2021 at 91 years old. Williams and Summerour were known for a style called the Piedmont blues, which is a regional variant of the blues that occurs in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia.

Williams and Summerour played music together under the name of Little Bit A Blues from the early 1990s. During their tenure together, they recorded several albums, including for the Smithsonian Folkways label. Eric Selby later joined up with Williams and Summerour, completing the trio.

Their recording, The Best of Little Bit a Blues: Live at B.B. King's Bluesville, on Soul Stew Records reached number one on the Blues411 chart, was nominated for a WAMMIE for Blues/Traditional R&B Recording of the Year as well as received a JIMI Award for Best Live Recording of the Year.

Williams was a recipient of a 2011 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

Williams died in September 2021, aged 91.

Williams was from Takoma Park, Maryland and Summerour is from Rockville, Maryland.

(Warner Williams at Pennsylvania Blues Festival 2014)