High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Billy Ward and His Dominoes were an African-American musical team, one of the best-selling American R & B groups of the 1950s. The team began the careers of both Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson. Billy Ward (born Robert L. Williams, 19 September 1921, Savannah, Georgia-died 16 February 2002, Inglewood, California) grew up in Philadelphia, the second of three sons of Charles Williams and Cora Bates Williams, and was a child musical prodigy, winning an award for a piano composition at the age of 14. Following military service with the U.S. Coast Guard he studied music in Chicago, and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. While working as a vocal coach and part-time arranger on Broadway, he met talent agent Rose Marks, who became his business and songwriting partner.