Career

The daughter of bandleader / trumpeter Bobby Booker, she began her career by singing background vocals for various artists including, Curtis Hairston

Curtis Hairston

Curtis Hairston was a US soul/funk vocalist who had a number of Top 75 hits in the UK and US, both as a solo artist and as a featured artist in the B. B. & Q. Band....

, Melba Moore

Melba Moore

Beatrice Melba Smith , known by her stage name, Melba Moore is an American disco, R&B singer and actress. She is the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis.-Early life:...

 ("Love's Coming At Ya"), B. B. & Q. Band

B. B. & Q. Band

-Studio albums:* The B. B. & Q. Band * All Night Long * Six Million Times * Genie -Compilation albums:* The Best Of The B.B. & Q...

, Cashflow, Unlimited Touch

Unlimited Touch

Unlimited Touch was a New York based post disco group who had some regional fame in the early eighties. The group consisted of Audrey Wheeler, Phil Hamilton, Tony Cintron, Sandy Anderson, Stephanie James and Lenny Underwood. Raymond Reid and William Anderson from New York-based band Crown Heights...

, Bobby Brown

Bobby Brown

Robert Barisford "Bobby" Brown is an American R&B singer-songwriter, occasional rapper, and dancer. After success in pop group New Edition, Brown began his solo career in 1987 and had a string of Top 10 Billboard hits, culminating in a Grammy Award. He was a pioneer of New Jack Swing music, a...

 and Barbara Mitchell before joining the group High Fashion, which also featured Meli'sa Morgan

Meli'sa Morgan

Meli'sa Morgan is an African American R&B singer born in Queens, New York who had a string of urban contemporary and house music hits in the 1980s and 1990s. She got her start in the music industry whilst singing with a church gospel choir called the Starlets of Corona...

. After they disbanded, Alyson sang with the group The Affair before moving onto a solo career.

Her first single, "Yes We Can Can", was first released on Profile Records in 1986; a release on the Def Jam label followed in 1987. At the label, she established herself as an in demand vocalist, duetting with many of her label mates including Chuck Stanley ("Make You Mine Tonight") and Oran "Juice" Jones ("How To Love Again").

Her first album release and the first R&B female singer signed to Def Jam, she released the album Raw in 1989. The album produced the singles "My Love is So Raw", featuring female rapper Nikki D

Nikki D

Nichelle "Nikki D" Strong is an American female rapper. Nikki D was the first female rapper signed by Def Jam Recordings.-Career:She signed with Def Jam in 1989, and released her debut single "A No No No" the same year. It was produced by Sam Sever. The single's video featured Flavor Flav...

,and "Sleep Talk". In addition, the single "Just Call My Name" was a hit on the Billboard R&B charts reaching number #4. The song, picked up by many "Quiet storm

Quiet storm

Quiet storm is a late-night radio format, featuring soulful slow jams, pioneered in the mid-1970s by then-station-intern Melvin Lindsey at WHUR-FM, in Washington, D.C. Smokey Robinson's like-titled hit single, released in 1975 as the title track to his third solo album, lent its name to the format...

" formats, is now considered a cult classic and is still played. The album included a duet with the Blue Magic

Blue Magic

Blue Magic can refer to:* Blue Magic , a R&B and soul music vocal quintet.*"Blue Magic" , a song from rapper Jay-Z's album American Gangster...

 vocalist Ted Mills on "We're Gonna Make It". Her single "I Need Your Lovin'" was also a #8 success in the UK, as well as another R&B hit for her.

Alyson also recorded with Tashan on the track "Do You Wanna Know", taken from his On The Horizon outing. She additionally toured with him in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. In 1991, Alyson recorded "She's Not Your Fool" for the soundtrack to the movie Livin' Large

Livin' Large

Livin' Large! is a 1991 comedy movie starring Terrence "T.C." Carlson, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, and Loretta Devine.- Plot :Carson portrays Dexter Jackson, a young, black deliveryman in Atlanta, Georgia who aspires to become a news reporter. Jackson gets what he considers his big break, when he...

. The track was included upon her 1991 self-titled album.

Studio albums

Year	Album	Chart positions		Record label
		US R&B Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...	UK UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
1989	Raw	25	29	Def Jam Def Jam Recordings Def Jam Recordings is an American record label, focused primarily on hip hop and urban music, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as a part of The Island Def Jam Motown Music Group...
1992	Alyson Williams	31	—	Columbia Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
2004	It's About Time	—	—	Three Keys Music
"—" denotes the album failed to chart

Singles

Year	Single	Chart Positions
		US R&B Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...	US Dance	UK UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
1986	"Yes We Can Can Yes We Can Can "Yes We Can Can" is a 1973 funk classic recorded by the American R&B girl group the Pointer Sisters and released on the Blue Thumb record label... "	—	—	—
1987	"Make You Mine Tonight" (with Chuck Stanley)	66	—	—
1989	"Sleep Talk"	3	3	17
	"My Love Is So Raw" (featuring Nikki D Nikki D Nichelle "Nikki D" Strong is an American female rapper. Nikki D was the first female rapper signed by Def Jam Recordings.-Career:She signed with Def Jam in 1989, and released her debut single "A No No No" the same year. It was produced by Sam Sever. The single's video featured Flavor Flav... )	12	28	34
	"Just Call My Name"	4	—	—
	"I Second That Emotion I Second That Emotion "I Second That Emotion" is a 1967 song primarily composed by Smokey Robinson and originally released as a single from his band Smokey Robinson & the Miracles for the Motown label. The song peaked for three weeks in the United States at #4 on the Billboard pop singles chart in December 1967... "	—	—	44
1990	"I Need Your Lovin'"	5	—	8
	"Not on the Outside"	35	—	—
1992	"Can't Have My Man"	7	—	—
	"Just My Luck"	6	—	—
	"Everybody Knew But Me"	63	—	—
"—" denotes the single failed to chart

External links

• Alyson Williams on Billboard
  Billboard (magazine)
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
  
• Alyson Williams on Soul Tracks
• Alyson Williams on Soul Walking