James Williamson of The Stooges
When I was around 7 or 8 my sister began bringing home Elvis Presley records; later on, maybe during the summer before 7th grade and while on a vacation to Texas from Oklahoma where we lived then, I started talking my mom into getting me this Sears Silvertone F—hole acoustic guitar since my uncle worked for Sears and could get me a discount. During my carreer though, I've always primarily used a Gibson Les Paul Custom, especially on Stooges stuff, both live and in the studio.
From there, I took a couple lessons from the local music store and it turned out my teacher Rusty McDonald had his own TV show. Unknown at the time, he had also been a touring singer with Bob Wills. Once I'd learned to play "Good Ol' Mountain Dew" he had me on the show to sing and play it, my first exposure to show biz, after that we moved to Michigan next door to a family who was way into music and I spent the summer hanging at their house really learning to play guitar.
I think it's always been difficult trying to do something different. People generally are not very accepting of new things right away. It's probably the same nowadays, the question is whether or not you're doing something that'll leave a lasting impact or not, only time will answer that question.
During The Stooges' hiatus I basically put the guitar down altogether for roughly 30 years. Then I got a call from Iggy when Ron Asheton passed away and we were talking about the funeral arrangements for the most part. It wasn't until about a month later that I got another call asking if I wanted to re—join the band. At first, I said no since I already had a job and frankly, didn't know if I could handle it since I hadn't played in so long. But, gradually, as I was about to take early retirement from my job as VP of Standards for Sony, I felt like I owed it to these guys to re—join as we all went back to our 20's together. No second thoughts really, I've enjoyed the accolades and it's kind of been like an opportunity to take some victory laps at the end of the game.
Before I started rehearsing with the Stooges again, I rehearsed with a local band called The Careless Hearts, It was fun to do and to repay them I did one local gig which was fun too. Meanwhile, The Stooges started to rehearse in LA and that ended up being a blast even though it was a lot of work.
A lot of people wonder if we were aware we were making something special when we did "Raw Power" but no, of course not, how could we. However, we did know that we really liked the music we were coming up with and were hoping to have a hit record, which of course was sadly delusional. Well, actually it was a hit record, it just took 40 years to accumulate enough sales to make it so. On the other hand, it's influence was epic.