Influenced by players from James Jamerson to Stanley Clarke, by the 1960s Williams was playing bass in a soul music band known as Sounds of Soul with future Allman Brothers drummer Jai Johanny Johanson.\n', '

In 1968, Williams was drafted into the United States Army and sent into the Vietnam War. Opposed to the war and to killing in general, Williams went AWOL frequently and wandered around the jungles of South Vietnam, occasionally returning to various units. He was given an honorable discharge in 1970.\n', '

After jamming with a Biloxi group known as the Fungus Blues Band, Williams joined the Allman Brothers Band in late 1972 after the death of original bassist Berry Oakley. His tenure in the group coincided with the peak of their commercial success. When Williams auditioned, or \'tried out,\' for the bass player gig with the Allmans, second drummer Butch Trucks suddenly declared three songs in, "Enough of this tryout shit, let\'s rehearse." Although rooted in the contrapuntal fluidity of Jamerson\'s style, Williams\' style was more traditional than Oakley\'s lead guitar-like approach, freeing the band\'s drummers to be more adventurous.\n', '

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