ROGER WILLIAMS (US)

Born: 1 October 1924
Died: 8 October 2008 (aged 87)
Birth name: Louis Jacob Weertz

Williams was born in Omaha, Iowa, but his family moved to Des Moines before he had turned 1. He began playing piano when he was 3, but also had an interest in boxing. He would major in piano at Des Moines university after which he would serve time in the US Navy during World War II. After this he would move to New York where he attended Julliard and studied jazz. He would win a couple of contests and was noticed by David Kapp of Kapp Records who signed him to the label. Kapp would rename him Roger Williams. His first hit was ‘Autumn Leaves’ which would top the US charts and is apparently the only piano instrumental to have gone to number 1 there. He would go on to see 23 US chart hits (counting the 1965 version of ‘Autumn Leaves’ separately) but had no further chart toppers.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
22-Jul-1966	Lara’s Theme (From Dr Zhivago)	10	7
		Total hits	1
		Total weeks	7

Biggest climber awards	2
Star rater climbs	2
Biggest fallers	2
Weeks with oldest in the charts	8
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	18
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	0
Top 30 points ranking	=402
Top 20 points ranking	356
Top 30 points	418
Top 20 points	238

Williams version of ‘Lara’s Theme’ was not used in the film ‘Dr Zhivago’, but rather it was the person who wrote it, Maurice Jarre, whose version was used.

‘Lara’s Theme’ was 1 of 8 instrumentals to top the charts and it would be the 2^nd best performing instrumental (top 20 and top 30 points basis), beaten only by The Klaxons’ ‘Clap-Clap Sound’.