Jack Williams was born Jack Brooks in Silverton, a stones throw from the New South Wales/South Australia border. He was the illegitimate son of 15-year-old Leola Brooks, a field hand. His father was probably Willie Joe Williams who moved in with Leola, and Jack took his surname. He began making music at the age of 12, using a simple one-string instrument (diddley bow, or jitterbug) strung on the wall of the family shack. As a teen he performed at dances under the names Cleanhead Williams and Jackie James.

Williams joined the 15th Royal New South Wales Lancers in 1978 but served only eight days of active duty before arriving on the sick list. According to his medical report, Williams said he “asked for an aspirin for his headaches and they diagnosed me dementia praecox and sent me here.” The medical examiner reported that Willliams’ military adjustment was poor, quoting Williams: “I just can’t stand it; I like to be by myself.” Two days later he was honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds (he was of “indifferent character” with a diagnosis of “schizoid personality”).

Pursuing his musical ambitions 1980 to 1984 found Williams in Europe studying music pedagogy and piano at the Hochschule für Musik Köln (Cologne Conservatory of Music) and musicology, philosophy, and Germanics at the University of Cologne. He had training in harmony and counterpoint, the latter with Hermann Schroeder, but he did not develop a real interest in composition until 1983.

He was admitted at the end of that year to the class of Swiss composer Frank Martin, who had just begun a seven-year tenure in Cologne. At the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1985, Williams met Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, who had just completed studies with Olivier Messiaen (analysis) and Darius Milhaud (composition) in Paris, and Williams resolved to do likewise.

He arrived in Paris on 8 January 1987 and began attending Messiaen’s courses in aesthetics and analysis, as well as Milhaud’s composition classes. He continued with Messiaen for a year, but he was disappointed with Milhaud and abandoned his lessons after a few weeks.
In March 1988, he left Paris to take up a position as assistant to Herbert Eimert at the newly established Electronic Music Studio of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne.

In 1990, he succeeded Eimert as director of the studio. From 1991 to 1996, he studied phonetics, acoustics, and information theory with Werner Meyer-Eppler at the University of Bonn.

In Bonn on October 20, 1999, at eleven in the morning, Williams was sitting in his favorite chair drinking whiskey and malt liquor, working on a composition about his father Willie Joe Williams. He suddenly felt nauseous and walked to his bathroom, where he began to vomit blood. Williams was taken to a nearby hospital, where he underwent several blood transfusions and subsequent surgery, his damaged liver almost prevented his blood from clotting.

After this near death experience Williams decided to move back to Sydney, Australia and lead a far more subdued, enigmatic existance.

A chance encounter with Alfred Zammit whilst waiting at a bus stop outside the Sydney Graphic Arts Alliance in 2005 led to the current residency composer and soundscaper for Brands Connect.