James Williamson

James Williamson is a Guitariste, producing Compositeur and American.

Born the October 29th 1949 with Castroville, Texas (small village founded at the 19th century by Alsatian the, close one to San Antonio), James Williamson (his complete name is James Robert Williamson) is raised by his mother and her father-in-law, a very strict soldier with education. The removals are frequent for the Williamson young person. At 12 years, whereas he lives in the Oklahoma, he learns how to play of the guitar at called Rusty Sparks.

Its family moves for Detroit, Michigan, when it is 14 years old. It is at this period that he plays in its first group, The Chosen Few, which takes again primarily Rolling Stones. It is within this group that it becomes acquainted later with Ron Asheton, then bass player. The group separates shortly after in 1967, and Asheton will found the Stooges with Iggy Pop.

Williamson keeps contact with Asheton, and made knowledge with Stooges, visiting them even in New York, whereas they record their first album éponyme, in 1969. At the summer 1970, Iggy Pop transfers Dave Alexander, and the group tests several bass players. It is shortly after that Ron Asheton suggests engaging a second guitarist to pack the sound of the group. James Williamson thus becomes the second guitarist of Stooges in the last months of their Elektra period (probably towards the end of 1970 - at the beginning of 1971), which is completed by the first dissolution of the group on July 8th, 1971. Iggy Pop leaves to detoxicate himself in New York, and meets David Bowie over there. When this last proposes in Iggy Pop to fly away in London with him to produce its next disc, Iggy takes along only James Williamson with him, forgetting the Asheton brothers… But once on the spot, they do not find musicians who agree to them. James Williamson thus proposes in Iggy to make return Asheton.

The group reappears thus in June 1972, famous with the passage Iggy and The Stooges, and Williamson becomes only guitarist of the group relegating Asheton to low. Iggy Pop and James Williamson compose to two the songs of the third album of Stooges, Raw Power. With this occasion, Williamson develops an aggressive style in its manner of playing, largely influencing the punk one which will explode a few years later.

The album is a failure commercially speaking. Moreover, Stooges sink in the abuse hard drugs. Become unverifiable, they are thanked by their recording company, two years only after their ousting of Elektra.

At the end of the group in 1974 (marked by the famous concert of February 9th, 1974 in Michigan Palace of Strait), it continued to accompany Iggy Pop, composing with him its first album post-Stooges, Kill City, in 1975, a disc of which nobody will want at the time and who will leave only two years later. It is at this period that Iggy Pop, whose health condition mental is more than alarming, will make a stay in psychiatric hospital, while Williamson will be a new passion for electronics. After a small bracket during which it benefitted from it to resume its studies, it then produced and played of the guitar on the third album of Iggy, New Values, in 1979. Lastly, it started to work on the following album of Iggy Pop, Soldier, before this last does not mean its reference to him, the meetings of production of Williamson being remade and not appearing on the disc. James Williamson disappears then from the world of the music, to join Silicon Valley where he will devote himself to his other passion, electronics. He is today one of the high ranking officials of Sony. During the reformation of Stooges in 2003, James Williamson was logically not reinstated in the group. Besides Ron Asheton, probably rancorous, refuses always to play its compositions (of which some, like " Search & Destroy" , " Raw Power" or " Gimme Danger" , are however among most known of the group).

Questioned lately as for a possible meeting of the Stooges time Raw Power, James Williamson declared that it would not be interested, and that in any event, it could not play even any more. However, on the assumption that the group would end up being established with the Rock'n'roll' Roll Hall Off Famed, it did not exclude to go up on scene the time of a piece, if however the other members of the group, and in particular the Asheton brothers, want him well…

Discography

1973 Iggy and The Stooges - Raw Power
1976 Iggy and The Stooges - Metallic K.O (recording live in 1973 & 1974)
1977 Iggy Pop & James Williamson - Kill City (recorded in collaboration with Iggy Pop in 1975)
1979 Iggy Pop - New Been worth
2005 The Stooges - Heavy Liquid (box of demonstrations and recordings live between 1972 and 1974)

External bonds

Interview of James Williamson by Paul Trynka in 2006
Interview of James Williamson by Ken Shimamoto in 2001
Interview of Iggy Pop and James Williamson in 1974 for Creem Magazine

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