James 'Diamond' Williams

James "Diamond" Williams. (b. March 27^th,1950). Drummer, vocalist & songwriter who came to prominence as a member of American funk & soul band, The Ohio Players.

Ohio Players were an American funk, soul music and R&B band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their songs "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster".

Gold certifications, records selling at least five hundred thousand copies, were awarded to the singles "Funky Worm", "Skin Tight", "Fire", and "Love Rollercoaster"; as well as their albums Skin Tight, Fire, and Honey.

On August 17, 2013, Ohio Players were inducted into the inaugural class of the Official R&B Music Hall of Fame that took place at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.

History

The band formed in Dayton, Ohio, in 1959 as the Ohio Untouchables and initially included members Robert Ward (vocals/guitar), Marshall "Rock" Jones (bass), Clarence "Satch" Satchell (saxophone/guitar), Cornelius Johnson (drums), and Ralph "Pee Wee" Middlebrooks (trumpet/trombone). They were best known at the time as a backing group for The Falcons.

Ward had proved to be an unreliable leader who would sometimes, during gigs, walk off the stage, forcing the group to stop playing. Eventually, the group vowed to keep playing even after he left. Ward and Jones got into a fistfight in 1964, after which the group broke up.

Ward found new backups, and the group's core members returned to Dayton. They replaced Ward with 21-year-old Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner (guitar), who would become the group's front man, and added Gregory Webster (drums). To accommodate Bonner's musical style preferences for the group ("R&B with a little flair to it") and to avoid competing with Ward, the group changed their format. By 1965, the group had renamed itself Ohio Players, reflecting its members' self-perceptions as musicians and as ladies' men.

The group added two more singers, Bobby Lee Fears and Dutch Robinson, and became the house band for the New York-based Compass Records. In 1967, they added vocalist Helena Ferguson Kilpatrick.

The group disbanded again in 1970. After again re-forming with a line-up including Bonner, Satchell, Middlebrooks, Jones, Webster, trumpeter Bruce Napier, vocalist Charles Dale Allen, trombonist Marvin Pierce, and keyboardist Walter "Junie" Morrison, the Players had a minor hit on the Detroit-based Westbound label with "Pain" (1971), which reached the Top 40 of the Billboard R&B chart. James Johnson joined the group at this time as vocalist and saxophonist. Dale Allen shared co-lead vocals on some of the early Westbound material, although he was not credited on their albums Pain and Pleasure. It was at Westbound Records where the group met George Clinton, who admired their music. The two albums' avant-garde covers featured a spiked-black leather-bikini-clad, bald model Pat "Running Bear" Evans, who would later grace additional Ohio Players albums, including Climax, Ecstasy, and Gold.

The band's first big hit single was "Funky Worm", which reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and made the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1973. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in May of that year. The band signed with Mercury Records in 1974. By then, their line-up had changed again, with keyboardist Billy Beck instead of Morrison and Jimmy "Diamond" Williams on drums instead of Webster. On later album releases, they added second guitarist/vocalist Clarence "Chet" Willis and conguero Robert "Kuumba" Jones. Meanwhile, keyboardist Walter "Junie" Morrison recorded three albums on his own before joining Funkadelic as the force behind their hit One Nation Under a Groove. An internet story in advance of a June 2017 concert indicated that Billy Beck, Jimmy "Diamond" Williams, Clarence "Chet" Willis, and Robert "Rumba" Jones are still performing.

The band had seven Top 40 hits between 1973 and 1976. These included "Fire" (No. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts for two weeks and one week respectively in February 1975 and another million seller) and "Love Rollercoaster" (No. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts for one week in January 1976; another gold disc recipient). The group also took on saxophonist James Johnson. The group's last big hit was "Who'd She Coo?", a No. 1 R&B hit in August 1976. It was their only success in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 43 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1976.

In the late seventies, three members of the group went on to form Shadow, which would release three albums.

In August 2013, the Ohio Players were inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame at the Waetjen Auditorium of Cleveland State University as part of the inaugural class.