Robin Williamson
Prolific as Pig's Whiskers
by Lahri Bond

Prolific barely describes the recorded and creative output of Scottish singer, musician, storyteller, and composer Robin Williamson. Since his days in the mid-60s through the early 70s with the Incredible String Band (ISB), with The Merry Band in the late 70s and 80s, and his solo work up to the present, Williamson has always been a dynamo of creative energy. Williamson juggles as many projects as he plays instruments. The last two and a half years has been a bumper season.

In 1996 Williamson restructured his publishing company, Pig's Whiskers Music, and formed an independent record label with longtime friend and associate Mark Anstey (of Unique Gravity Records). Anstey acts as label manager and general cheering section for Williamson's work as well as having a hand in projects with other ex-ISB members Mike Heron and Malcolm Le Maistre. The freedom of being in control of his own independent label has been liberating for Williamson. "He's had all these projects stored up in his head for years." Anstey pointed out. "It's difficult to get a label to fund all these things. Now that he has his own label he can do exactly what he wants, when he wants to."

Under the reformed Pig's Whiskers Music, Williamson has released 17 releases, only a few of them reissues of previously released records (two are archive performances of The Merry Band and ISB). Among the label's first releases were a limited edition solo concert from June, 1995, where Williamson played a program of songs in celebration of the months and seasons of the year. This was followed by an archive release of Robin Williamson and His Merry Band's Farewell Concert at McCabes, featuring the neo-Celtic ensemble playing of Williamson, Sylvia Woods, Chris Caswell and Jerry McMillan, with a rare live version of Williamson's epic "Five Denials On Merlin's Grave."

The semi-spoken, semi-musical Mirrorman Sequences, released in that same year, was a rambling, Kerouac-inspired, backward glance at Williamson's pre and early ISB days and is a remarkable work of truth and fiction. The 1997 release of ISB's The Chelsea Sessions 1967 was a CD of out-takes and previously unreleased material from the band's 5000 Spirits or The Layers of the Onion LP. It coincided with a renewed interest in the ISB and prompted a brief but fruitful reunion with founding member Mike Heron. One of two performances of this reunion was later released as Robin Williamson & Mike Heron - Bloomsbury 1997.

Another limited edition CD, Memories, featured music for the art installation Erinnerungen, by Hans Diebschlag. Dream Journals 1966-76 was literally a musical and spoken recounting of some of Williamson's most surreal dreams of that time period. "Things like the Dream Journals have been sitting there for many years, not performed," Williamson said from his home in Cardiff, Wales. "I suppose I've been hatching ideas for some time now, that I've been waiting to do."

One of these has been the CD Ring Dance, where Williamson re-recorded many never officially released bits of songs from ISB, Merry Band and recent times. His approach was much more spontaneous than previous releases and the resulting freshness has earmarked all his subsequent recordings. This re-embracing of the traditional songs that first inspired the young Williamson to write his own music has produced a trilogy of recordings. A Job of Journey Work, released late in 1998, gathers together many of the old standards and dyed-in-the-wool traditional songs that Williamson has always loved.

The Old Fangled Tone featured Williamson backed by a traditional brass band, an idea he had been toying with for years. The record was made with a refreshing spontaneity. Anstey recalled, "I made a few phone calls and within a day it was all set up. It was just down to deciding what material to record. He wrote all the parts out for the brass. We brought them in from West Yorkshire, which is the area of the traditional brass bands, and recorded it live. Then I spent four and half weeks in the studio mixing it."

The latest project hails back to before the Incredible String Band, when Williamson joined with Clive Palmer, a singer and banjo player. The latest Pig's Whiskers release is At the Pure Fountain, a new duo album, featuring Williamson's and Palmer's first reunion in 33 years.