Our friend and member of the NCFBS Board of Directors Marie Williams passed Tuesday morning of pancreatic cancer. We at the North Central Florida Blues Society honor our friend Marie Williams for the big impact she made. She meant a lot to us, and we are truly thankful for all she did and who she was. She will be greatly missed.
Marie’s life long passion for music has taken her on a long journey across many genres and states. She began performing in her home town in Pennsylvania at age twelve, singing and playing piano, guitar and woodwinds, exploring genres from classical to jazz, big band swing and show tunes. After completing her bachelor’s degree in education, Marie found musical opportunities all over the country; performing with concert bands and choirs in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, teaching elementary school music and direction children’s choirs in Islamorada, Florida, and Astoria, Oregon. After several years as a church music director and soloist, Marie earned a Masters degree in Sacred Music and shared her passion with hundreds of students both young and old as a private music instructor in Virginia Beach, where she had the honor of meeting and collaborating with many talented artists across multiple genres including jazz, rock, bluegrass, country and Blues. These days she found her calling as an old school Blues singer with Dr Jules’ Cool Blues.
Photo by Charlie Boyer, Jazz & Blues Florida.
