R.I.P.: Maurice Williams, 'Stay' Singer and Songwriter

Maurice Williams ('38-'24)

Maurice Williams, the singer and songwriter whose 1960 single “Stay,” recorded with his doo-wop group the Zodiacs, shot to No. 1 and became a cover-song staple for a long line of musical acts, including the Four Seasons, the Hollies and Jackson Browne, died on Aug. 6 in Charlotte, N.C. He was 86, according to The NYTimes.

Williams owed a considerable career debt to a girl he dated when he was 15. She provided the inspiration for his two biggest hits: “Little Darlin’,” recorded when his group was called the Gladiolas, which hit No. 41 on the Billboard pop chart in 1957; and “Stay,” which briefly topped the chart in 1960.

Williams recalled the origins of “Stay,” his only chart-topping single, in a 2018 video interview. “This young lady I was going with, she was over to my house, and this particular night, her brother was supposed to pick her up at 10,” he said. “So he came, and I said, ‘Well, you can stay a little longer.’ And she said, ‘No, I gotta go.’”

The next morning he woke up and wove that and other snippets from their conversation — “Now, your daddy don’t mind/And your mommy don’t mind” — into song form, building to its indelible signature line, which, seven years later, the Zodiacs’ Henry Gaston would render in a celestial falsetto: “Oh, won’t you stay, just a little bit longer.”

Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs’ recording of the song stood out not only for its infectious hooks but also for its eye-blink length — slightly over 90 seconds.

“We wanted to make it short so it would get more airplay,” Mr. Williams said. And, he added, “It worked.”

On Nov. 21, 1960, “Stay” peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. “I thought the Top 10 was big,” Mr. Williams said in a 2015 interview with The Charlotte Observer. “But when we hit No. 1, oh man, we were superstars.”

Although Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” knocked the song off its perch the next week, “Stay” lived on for decades as perhaps pop music’s most glorious example of recycling.