Compositions William H. Tyers was a free-born mulatto of former Virginia slaves Henry and Anna Tyers, born in 1870 in Petersburg, Virginia, just south of Richmond. Many biographies state his birth year as 1876, and some show one or both of his parents born outside the U.S. However, U.S. census records are very clear and consistent on both his birth year of 1870 and that the birthplace of both of his parents as Virginia. One document suggests even an 1867 birth year. The cause of this discrepancy between official documents and printed biographies is unknown, but hopefully future researchers will also consult the Census and other records and confirm this updated information as correct.
Spending his first 12 years in Richmond, Virginia, Will's family moved to New York City to find a better situation. It was there that he found some interest in music and started piano lessons. Will's teacher was clear that the boy showed a propensity not just for playing for composition and harmony/theory as well. He started writing a number of pieces, although not initially published, in the mid 1880s, among them well-developed polkas and waltzes. His experiences increased his interest in music, and he set out to make it his living.
Around the time he was 20, Tyers training led him to a job as a music librarian and perhaps an arranger (unconfirmed) for a touring concert company. One of those tours was to Europe, where in Hamburg he fell into a good opportunity to study orchestration and arranging with one Professor Gaspari. Eventually Will's health started to deteriorate, so he made his way back home to Manhattan, arriving from Hamburg in Manhattan on November 16, 1891 on the Normannia. He kept working in music and arranging, and soon married his first wife, Burdette Tyers. In 1896 Will submitted his syncopated march composition Sambo for publication, and some consider it to be the first true instrumental rag [disputed status]. It was published by Kerry Mills who would later contribute the cakewalk At a Georgia Campmeeting, the waltz song Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis, and the intermezzo Red Wing into the world of ragtime-era music. An orchestrated version was soon available for New York bands to play.
This success led to an arranging job with the Joseph W. Stern firm in 1897. Where this is remarkable is that he was hired for his talent in spite of his race. Many composers and arrangers could never have hoped for a staff job at such a large publishing firm at that time, much less the guarantee of a salary, but Tyers was able to break through that racial ceiling successfully. His hiring may have been in part because Stern recognized the coming popularity of black music forms, and aside from Gotham-Attucks music formed later, he was one of the leading publishers of black-composed ragtime and popular song in New York.
Indeed, one of Tyer's early assignments was the rearrangement of Tom Turpin's Harlem Rag, changing it considerably from its first two editions. It will never be known how many manuscripts were touched up or altered by Tyers before they reached the typesetting stage, 
but some of the more considerable works under his hand did show an arranging credit, and many of the overall body of works may have been saved from obscurity under Tyers' hand. His talent also got him work arranging for songs for The Policy Players (1899), the second of the New York City musical shows by the team of Bert Williams and George Walker. Williams would go on to be a star in the famed Ziegfeld Follies. Another fine but often overlooked Tyers work from 1898 was The Trail, which is one of the earliest examples of an American-based tango tune. The 1900 census shows Will and Burdette as Manhattan residents, with his occupation listed as musician.
In 1902, Tyers remarried to Canadian-born Helena (Lena) Tyers. The output of his own compositions was starting to shift to Latin-based or "Spanish-tinge" pieces with habañera rhythms, and he focused on instrumentals, not collaborating on any songs. Many of his own compositions were published by other houses than employer Stern. Among the successes in the Latin style was Maori which brought him increased fame and attention as it was played by bands around the United States. The 1910 Census shows him as a traveling musician, even though he had maintained a stable spot with Stern until 1913. It was in 1909 that Tyers became one of the co-founders of the famed Clef Club of Manhattan, headed by James Reese Europe and assisted by Ford Dabney. Among his roles in the organization were as an officer who was able to organize groups for hired performances, and as an assistant conductor to Europe.
In 1910 at their Second Grand Musical Mélange and Dance Fest he conducted, and perhaps premiered two of his pieces, Panama and Smyrna. Anything with the name Panama in it was, of course, a hot topic at that time because of the U.S. sponsorship of the construction of the long-awaited canal there. Tyers' natural sense of Latin rhythms, which some attribute possibly to his father who may have had deeper family roots in South America or the Caribbean, created a flowing piece that was a natural for dance bands to play, later to become and stay a traditional jazz favorite. It was also used to fuel the Tango rage that captivated American dancers and observers in the 1910s. While Panama was published in 1911, Smyrna, emulating Mid-Eastern rhythms, did not appear in print until 1914. These pieces plus other great piano and dance band arrangements helped to keep his name in front of the increasingly musically savvy public.
A notice appearing in a 1912 edition of the New York Evening Post wrote, "Were the name of Strauss appended to the Tout à Vous Waltz by Tyers, it would be one of the most popular waltzes in the world to-day." High praise for the composer considering the endangered status of the waltz then. That same year found the Clef Club performing at the prestigious Carnegie Hall with Tyers on the podium for some of the numbers, all of which were by African-American composers.
James Reese Europe's often heavy-handed management of the Clef Club groups, plus increasing distractions to the side like his work with dancers Vernon and Irene Castle, caused some dissension in the group, 
and many of them wanted to reorganize. So in 1914, a few months after his position at Stern ended the previous year, Tyers, along with Europe and Dabney, formed a new but similar organization, The Tempo Club. Both Dabney and Tyers acted as Europe's direct assistant and fill-ins, often conducting small orchestras or ensembles for the Castle's many society dance lesson/parties. This led to a gig with the Strand Roof Garden, where Tyers conducted his own orchestra during the mid to late 1910s while Reese, Dabney, and many other younger black musicians went off to the war with the 369th U.S. Infantry "Hell Fighters" Band and brigade. In 1917 Tyers became one of the earliest African American members of ASCAP, one of the few black artists to receive this honor so early in the society's history.
Will was above the age of those of his younger Clef Club peers who fought in Europe, so not eligible to serve. However, after the war in late 1918, he was called to France by Europe where he arranged and played with or conducted Europe's band. Among others in that legendary outfit were Willie "The Lion" Smith [dr], Sidney Bechet [cl], and entertainer Tom Fletcher. After returning to the U.S. in 1919, he was appointed an assistant conductor to Will Marion Cook's New York Syncopated Orchestra, and toured with them at times over the next three years, including a command performance for King George V in England. With them at times was the operatic soprano Abbie Mitchell. Tyers spent his summers at the beautiful and luxurious Mount Washington Hotel (opened in 1902) in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire with his own orchestra, and the rest of his time as an arranger for hire for many publishers who sought his services. Among them, his old employee Joseph Stern, Leo Feist, Shapiro/Shapiro & Bernstein, and the G. Ricordi company. If that wasn't enough, he also participated in the last breaths of vaudeville as a sometimes musical director and arranger for the white dance team of Billy Rock and Frances White for their final show together in 1919.
By the time of the 1920 Census, Tyers had been again divorced, and his father was now residing with him in Harlem. He was working as a musician and studio teacher on West 136th Street. His final summer in 1923 was primarily spent at the Mount Washington Hotel, and Tyers died in Manhattan the following spring (c.o.d. difficult to pin down) at age 54, according to Census records. One curiosity is that in spite of his divorced status of 1920, he either remarried Lena or his estate was left to her, or perhaps she just claimed it. Copyrights started appearing around 1930 with her name as the "widow of the author," and continued for at least 15 years.
Will Tyers' legacy goes far beyond his compositions, as he made it possible for many black composers to proudly see their works in publication and hear them shine in performance, helping to break many racial barriers in publishing and performance.