Maurice Williams, writer and lead singer of ‘Stay,’ dead at 86

NEW YORK — Maurice Williams, a rhythm and blues singer and composer who with his backing group the Zodiacs became one of music’s great one-shot acts with the classic ballad “Stay,” has died. He was 86.

Williams died Aug. 6, according to an announcement from the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, which did not immediately provide further details.

A writer and performer since childhood, Williams had been in various harmony groups when he and the Zodiacs began a studio session in 1960.

They unexpectedly made history near the end with their recording of “Stay,” which Williams had dashed off as a teenager a few years earlier.

Over hard chants of “Stay!” by his fellow vocalists, Williams carried much of the song and its plea to an unnamed girl. Midway, he stepped back and gave the lead to Shane Gaston and one of rock’s most unforgettable falsetto shouts — “OH, WON’T YOU STAY, JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER!.”

Barely over 1 minute, 30 seconds, among the shortest chart-toppers of the rock era, the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart in 1960 and was the group’s only major success.

But it was covered by the Hollies and the Four Seasons among others early on and endured as a favorite oldie, known best from when Jackson Browne sang it live for his 1977 “Running On Empty” album.

“Stay” also was performed by Browne, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty and others at the 1979 “No Nukes” concert at Madison Square Garden and appeared in its original version on the blockbuster “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack from 1987.

The song was inspired by a teen-age crush, Mary Shropshire.

“(Mary) was the one I was trying to get to stay a little longer,” Williams told the North Carolina publication Our State in 2012. “Of course, she couldn’t.”

Williams’ career was otherwise more a story of disappointments. He wrote another falsetto showcase, “Little Darlin,” and recorded it in 1957 with the Gladiolas. But the song instead became a hit for a white group, the Diamonds. In 1965, Williams and the Zodiacs cut a promising ballad, “May I.” But their label, Vee-Jay, went bankrupt just as the song was coming out and “May I” was later a hit for another white group, Bill Deal & the Rhondels.

Like many stars from the early rock era, Williams became a fixture on oldies tours and tributes, while also making the albums “Let This Night Last” and “Back to Basics.” In the mid-1960s, he settled in Charlotte, North Carolina and in 2010 was voted into the state’s Hall of Fame. Survivors include his wife, Emily.

Williams was born in Lancaster, South Carolina, and sang with family members in church while growing up. He was in his teens when he formed a gospel group, the Junior Harmonizers, who became the Royal Charms as they evolved into secular music and then the Zodiacs in honor of a Ford car they used on the road. Meanwhile, he was a prolific writer and needed little time to finish what became his signature hit.

“It took me about thirty minutes to write “Stay”, then I threw it away,” he later told www.classicsbands.com. “We were looking for songs to record as Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs. I was over at my girlfriend’s house playing the tape of songs I had written, when her little sister said, ‘Please do the song with the high voice in it.’ I knew she meant ‘Stay.’ She was about 12 years old and I said to myself, ‘She’s the age of record buying,’ and the rest is history. I thank God for her.”