

Ron Asheton would harbor a longstanding animus toward Williamson for several decades. Having failed to find other suitable musicians during an intensive search, they eventually invited the Asheton brothers to join them and reformed The Stooges, with the elder Asheton reluctantly moving from guitar to bass. In 1972, David Bowie offered Pop a chance to record in London Pop promptly enlisted Williamson as a collaborator for the project. According to Williamson, "I got hepatitis and moved back to Detroit and basically the band completely dissolved." Many of the demo recordings made during this period were belatedly issued as vinyl singles or EPs, including the proto-punk tracks "I Got A Right" and "Gimme Some Skin". The band were by then struggling with drug problems and a lack of commercial success despite the injection of Williamson's musicianship, The Stooges couldn't overcome their difficulties. He performed his first gig with the band on December 5, 1970. The Stooges īy late 1970, Williamson was invited to join The Stooges as a second guitarist. During that time, the Coba Seas taped a rehearsal session, resulting in the first recordings of Williamson.Īfter graduating from high school in 1969, Williamson travelled to New York to keep in touch with The Stooges, who were recording their debut album with former Velvet Underground multi-instrumentalist John Cale. While there, Williamson helped form and played lead guitar in the Coba Seas. In the first half of 1966, Williamson was sent to a boarding school in a small town eighty miles north of New York City. Williamson also spent some time in a juvenile home after his stepfather had told him to cut his hair and Williamson refused. Iggy was also there that night and so Williamson met both people that night and remained in touch afterward." As a guitarist, Asheton went on to form The Stooges with his brother Scott (drums), bassist Dave Alexander and Iggy Pop.

They met for the first time during a holiday break when Williamson attended a Frat Party Gig where Asheton was playing. Despite this connection, the two were barely acquainted at the time, with Asheton recalling that "the first time I played with them, that was the last time James played with them. Ron Asheton would go on to become the bassist in one of The Chosen Few's later line-ups. They performed cover versions of Rolling Stones songs and others. When Williamson was in the ninth grade in Detroit, he formed his first rock band, The Chosen Few, with schoolmate Scott Richardson. By the end of that summer, I got good enough that I ended up getting my own electric guitar, which was a Fender Jaguar.
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I would spend my days hanging over in his room, listening to him play and also learning how to play barre chords and things like that. I remember moving to Detroit-it was the summer when Martha and the Vandellas' "Heatwave" was a smash hit record. The son in that family, his name was Ken Black, taught me how to play chords better. Anyway, when I first learned to play guitar a little bit, it was just chords and stuff, but then about a year or so later we moved to the Detroit area, and it just so happened that I moved next door to a family that all played music. My uncle worked for Sears, so I ended up with an old Sears f-hole guitar with action about an inch and a half off the fret board.

My sister was bringing home Elvis records and so I thought, 'I gotta have a guitar.' So I talked my mom into getting me one. One summer while visiting Texas, I wound up getting a guitar because I thought it was cool. He began playing guitar in the 7th grade, while his family were living in Lawton, Oklahoma: His father died while he was young and he moved to San Antonio, Texas around the age of five. Williamson was born in Castroville, Texas in 1949.
