A member of the original formation of Maurice Williams the Zodiacs, this Willie Jones is not the same vocalist who worked with the Coasters under the name of Will Dub Jones. He also has nothing to do with a series of jazz musicians with the same name. Williams first formed his group in Lancaster, SC. The bandleader's talents included playing piano, lead singing, and songwriting, but he seemed to express an ambivalence about what to call the group he was leading. He first enlisted Jones, Earl Gainey, William Massey, and Norman Wade as the Royal Charms. The group went from triumphing at a mid-'50s hometown talent contest in Lancaster to touring the East Coast to royally charming its way onto the hit parade in 1960.

Williams changed the name of the band several times as this process went on. He first replanted the Royal Charms as the Gladiolas. This name at first seemed to smell just right to the A&R concerns at the Excello label; Jones was part of the lineup that label put into the studios while looking for talent on the Nashville scene. Little Darlin' was a Wiliams original that did even better as a cover version by a Canadian vocal group called the Diamonds. Perhaps overwhelmed by this gem of a name, Williams decided to hedge his bets by renaming the band after the record label -- sometime in 1957, the group became known as the Excellos.

Jones continued with the group until 1959, when the permanent name of the Zodiacs was finally established. But by the following year Jones was gone, one of several changes in membership that Williams had to deal with. The shakeup may have influenced him as a songwriter and in a big way, as the group's biggest hit ever was just around the corner. Entitled Stay, it might be interpreted as a message to Jones and others who had left. The song, eventually covered by artists such as the Hollies and the Four Seasons, is the direct opposite of epic hits such as Richard Harris' MacArthur Park or the full-length single version of Light My Fire: Stay is supposedly the shortest song in the history of the hit parade. Not much is known of Jones' activities after leaving Williams, although he may have been involved in the local beach music groups in the Carolinas. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi