Robin Williamson

Robin Duncan Harry Williamson (born 24 November 1943) is a Scottish multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and storyteller who was a founding member of The Incredible String Band.
Williamson lived in the Fairmilehead area of Edinburgh and attended George Watson's College before leaving at the age of 15 to become a professional musician. He performed in local jazz bands with Gerard Dott (later to be a member of the Incredible String Band) before turning to traditional music as a singer and guitarist. By 1961 he had met and begun sharing a flat with Bert Jansch, and in 1963 they traveled to London to play the metropolitan folk circuit. By 1965 he had returned to Edinburgh and formed a duo with Clive Palmer, specializing in fiddle and banjo arrangements of traditional Scottish and Irish songs. Joe Boyd signed them to Elektra Records in 1966, by which time they had hired a third member, Mike Heron. As resident band at Clive's Incredible Folk Club in Glasgow, they called themselves the Incredible String Band.
Between 1966 and 1974 the Incredible String Band, now led by Williamson and Heron, released some 13 albums. The group also included Williamson's girlfriend Licorice McKechnie.
Williamson released his first solo album, Myrrh, in 1971 when still a member of the Incredible String Band. After the band split up in 1974, he began living in Los Angeles and, for a while, turned his attention to writing, co-writing an espionage novel, The Glory Trap. Many of his albums are released by his label, Pig's Whisker Music.
By 1976 he had returned to music, forming The Merry Band with Sylvia Woods (Celtic harp), Jerry McMillan (fiddle), and Chris Caswell (flutes, and wire-strung harp). They toured extensively for three years throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, and released three albums: Journey's Edge, American Stonehenge, and A Glint at the Kindling.
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== Links To Peel ==
Peel first became aware of Robin Williamson in 1967, when, thanks to Clive Selwood of Elektra, he received a copy of the Incredible String Band's second LP, The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion, which he enthused about and played in full, over two successive nights, on the Perfumed Garden. The album, like the ISB's later LPs and Peel sessions, was equally divided between songs by Williamson and Mike Heron. 
Among the DJ's favourites were two Williamson songs, "First Girl I Loved", which sent him off on a reverie recalling his own first love, and "The Mad Hatter's Song", which, with its mixture of Indian music, folk and blues, illustrated how the ISB developed its own style of "pre-world music". Robin WIlliamson played a key role in this, as he was not only interested in music from around the world but had also acquired a collection of exotic musical instruments, some of them from Morocco, where he lived for a time during 1966. 
In his early days on the folk scene his singing had been influenced by Irish Gaelic singers, who used ornamentation in a similar way to Indian or Arab vocal styles, This too added to the eclecticism of the early ISB albums. He would also perform occasional solo tracks on ISB LP's, including "Puppet Song" on their 1970 double album U. Peel played it on the show of 31 October 1970 and showed an appreciation of WIlliamson's lyrics, saying that it had “one of the great first lines of all time” (namely; "Now, you may have observed if you walk into a wall/You get a certain sensation of reality") 
Robin WIlliamson participated in all of the ISB's Peel sessions until they split up in 1974, and also in the 2000 session after the ISB had reunited. Peel also played a few tracks from Williamson's albums with his Merry Band in the later 1970s, but he never did a session for JP under his own name, as he moved to the USA after the band broke up. Peel doesn't seem to have shown any interest in the singer's post-1980 work in Celtic music and storytelling, while WIlliamson himself, like Peel, had no nostalgia for his period of fame in the late 1960s. He preferred to reconnect with the traditional music he had performed in his pre-ISB career and to concentrate on his current projects. When the DJ revisited old ISB albums he tended to choose Mike Heron songs. But when he had Hefner in session, he commented that singer Darren Hayman's voice reminded him of Robin WIlliamson, showing that RW's distinctive vocal style had made a lasting impression on him.
== Sessions ==
* No solo sessions; 12 as a member of the Incredible String Band.
== Other Shows Played ==
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;1979
* 01 August 1979: Lough Foyle (album - A Glint At The Kindling) Criminal STEAL 6
* 06 August 1979: The Woodcutters Song (LP - Glint At The Kindling) Criminal
== External Links ==
* Wikipedia
* Discogs
* Pig's Whisker Music - official website
Category:Artists