Roger Williams in his 80's. Take THAT, Drake!

Roger Williams, the pianist whose hit renditions of songs like “Autumn Leaves” and “Born Free” are pop culture generational touchpoints, died this week. One item in his obituary has double ethical significance:

“While majoring in piano at Drake University in Des Moines, he began developing a style that was a fusion of jazz, classical and pop. When a school official overheard him playing the tune “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” he was expelled because the school had a “classics-only” policy…”

It is both encouraging and depressing to learn that school administrators were just as doctrinaire, unreasonable, unfair, incompetent, stupid and willing to abuse their power while playing with the lives of young people back in the 1940’s as they are today—encouraging, because that generation seems to have come through it pretty well; depressing, because this field appears to have a flat learning curve.

Mainly, however, Williams’ run-in with music snobs at Drake beautifully illustrates what is wrong with the consequentialist argument that we should assess the ethical nature of an act based on its consequences. Drake’s unreasonable and narrow-minded “no-tolerance” for popular music sent pianist Williams on a path that would lead to the founding of Rhode Island and…no, wait, I’m sorry: wrong Roger Williams! I always get them mixed up. It sent this Roger Williams on a path that led to one of the most successful recording careers any instrumentalist ever had.

Between 1955 and 1972, he had 22 hit singles and 38 hit albums, and was summoned to the White House to entertain nine presidents, from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush. (Who snubbed him? I’m guessing Clinton.)  Getting kicked out of Drake may have rescued Williams from a lifetime of playing the piano in a second-tier symphony orchestra, instead of delighting millions with his emotional interpretations of popular tunes like “The Impossible Dream.” That doesn’t make what Drake did any less wrong. It just means that all of us can overcome unethical conduct by others, with hard work, some luck, and in Williams’case, million-dollar fingers.

Thanks for the memories, Roger.

Here’s a sample of what Drake’s mistreatment wrought. Yes, I know…it’s Muzak.  But it made, indeed still makes, millions of people happy. That’s what Roger Williams did with his life, and you can’t get much more ethical than that.