June 12, 2011 9:30 pm Unum Stage

Maurice Williams was born in Lancaster, South Carolina in 1940. Musically inclined from an early age, he started learning the piano from his older sister in the late 1940's, practicing daily so that by the time he was 10 years. Williams had sung in church, but his interest lay more in popular music, and in 1953, he and his friends were ready to form a group that they called the Royal Charms, later to become The Zodiacs. The group's original membership, in addition to Williams, included Earl Gainey (tenor, guitar) Willie Jones (baritone), William Massey (tenor, baritone, trumpet), and Norman Wade (bass). They played school events and talent shows, winning several and acquiring a local following, before they finally got a paying gig at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. The year they'd started out, 1953, Williams had also written two songs that were to have a pivotal effect on his life and career, and the group's history: "Little Darling" and "Stay."