After 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.

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.

"[4] 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".

In a 1997 interview with Perfect Sound Forever, he reflected upon his relationship with Williamson at length, alleging that "James was into bad stuff.

"[3] Despite these tensions, Williamson co-wrote all the songs with Pop and played all the guitar parts on the ensuing album, Raw Power (1973).

'"[3] Nevertheless, Williamson's aggressive guitar playing on Raw Power has often been cited as a major influence on the emerging punk scene in the mid-seventies.

During this period, minimalist composer and former Prime Movers keyboardist Bob Sheff joined as the group's pianist; he was soon replaced by multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston, who formed an enduring friendship with Williamson.

According to Kevin L. Jones, "[T]he kind of touring they did was not what you would imagine today, with big buses, fancy stage lighting and expensive equipment.

Iggy and the Stooges toured like an invasive species, showing up at whatever venue would have them, scrambling for gear to play through and sucking up the drugs around them like walking Hoovers.

Those days are remembered with stories full of blood from random projectiles being thrown at them and even a moment when Elton John jumped onstage wearing a gorilla costume, scaring the living daylights out of Pop.

"[11] Williamson was briefly dismissed due to criticism from the band's management (likely related to his turbulent romantic relationship with Cyrinda Foxe, a friend of road manager Leee Black Childers); guitarist Tornado Turner replaced him for a single gig (on June 15, 1973 at the Aragon Ballroom)[12] before he was permitted to return.

During this period, Pop was briefly institutionalized (of his own volition) under the auspices of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, while Williamson was arrested on charges of heroin possession by the LAPD.

[11] After sustaining a finger injury during a drunken altercation at an Alice Cooper listening party, he gave up playing music professionally to work as a record producer and pursue a career as an electronics engineer, initially enrolling in classes at Los Angeles City College: "The Stooges was maybe my only real band and kind of a family and so when that fell apart it was difficult to go on.

In 1979, he was again persuaded to work with Iggy Pop as a producer and songwriter on New Values, his fourth solo album; in a partial reunion of The Stooges, Scott Thurston played guitar on all the tracks except "Don't Look Down."

Although Williamson continued to work with Pop on the initial sessions for Soldier (1980) in Wales, he brandished an air pistol and began to drink vodka heavily after failing to acclimate to the singer's new band, which included former Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, Patti Smith Band multi-instrumentalist Ivan Kral and Barry Andrews of XTC.

Following a squabble with Pop and David Bowie (who Williamson accused of exploiting The Stooges during the Raw Power era) over recording methods, he left the project.

His coworkers never inquired about his earlier career as a rock musician; in a 2010 interview with Uncut, Williamson asserted that many of his colleagues were "nerds and geeks ... they don't listen to The Stooges much.

"[17] In 1997, he was hired as Sony's vice president of technical standards; over the next decade, he liaised with competitors and helped to codify inter-operability norms for nascent products, most notably the Blu-ray Disc.

The award, named after late United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, is presented as part of World Standards Day celebration.

[19] Following Ron Asheton's sudden death in 2009, Williamson rejoined The Stooges, who had toured regularly after the Fun House-era lineup (save for Alexander, who had died years previously in 1975) reunited in 2003.

To rehearse, he enlisted the help of local roots rock band Careless Hearts, who backed him on his first gig in 35 years at the Blank Club in San Jose, California on September 5, 2009.

[21] Following several additional tours (many of which included full performances of Raw Power), the band released what would become their last album, Ready to Die, on April 30, 2013 via Fat Possum Records.

[23] Composed entirely of much-bootlegged songs by Pop and Williamson that were written, demoed and performed by The Stooges in the immediate aftermath of Raw Power, it featured vocal contributions from Jello Biafra, Bobby Gillespie, Ariel Pink, Carolyn Wonderland, Alison Mosshart and Lisa Kekaula along with performances by several members of the reunited Stooges (including bassist Mike Watt and touring drummer Toby Dammit).

[30] All guitars currently used onstage by Williamson are equipped with low-impedance, microphonic, humbucker pickups modeled after those in his original 1969 Gibson Les Paul Custom.

In concert, for "Gimme Danger" and "Open Up And Bleed", Williamson uses a Fishman Power Bridge piezo pickup equipped Les Paul (patched through a Fishma Aura pedal) for simulated acoustic guitar sounds.