Kathryn Williams (born 15 February 1974, Liverpool, England)[1] is an English singer-songwriter who to date has released 14 studio albums, written and arranged for a multitude of artists,[2] and was nominated for the 2000 Mercury Music Prize.[3]
Williams released her first album, Dog Leap Stairs, on her own Caw Records label in 1999 with a budget of £80. The follow-up, Little Black Numbers, garnered a Mercury Prize nomination in 2000, bringing her to the attention of a wider public.[4]
Her second release on the label, Crown Electric, was produced by Neil MacColl. Its lead single "Heart Shaped Stone" featured a video produced and directed by James Serafinowicz and Al Campbell.
In 2013, Williams was commissioned by New Writing North to produce songs in celebration of 50th anniversary of the publication of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. She performed five of the resulting tunes – "When Nothing Meant Less", "Battleships", "The Mind Has Its Own Place", "Tango With Marco", and "Part Of Us" – at the 10th Durham Book Festival. Teaming up with Ed Harcourt as producer, she released Hypoxia on 15 June 2015.[10]
In 2015 Emji, a finalist on the French TV talent show Nouvelle Star, won the 11th series singing "Toboggan (You Are The One)", a song written by Williams, David Saw and John Quarmby, which was her first single.[11]
Williams appeared with Maxïmo Park at BBC 6Music Festival, Sage, Gateshead on 21 February 2015.
Her 14th album, a collaboration with author Laura Barnett featuring songs based on Barnett's second novel, Songs From The Novel 'Greatest Hits', was released on 16 June 2017[13]
A multi CD box set of Kathryn's solo work from 1998 to 2015 encompassing 10 previously released albums with 10 further CDs of bonus material was released on One Little Indian 30 August 2019.[14]
The Crayonettes
Williams collaborated with friend / former member of punk band Delicate Vomit, Anna Spencer, on a new project entitled The Crayonettes. Williams and Spencer, both tired of the same old children's CD format, decided to make their own record using their own children as an in house focus group. They released the album Playing Out: Songs For Children & Robots from One Little Indian (6 September 2010). The Guardian wrote that "Pirates On the Bus" "sounds like the Moomins playing The Slits."[15]
The Pond
The Pond consisted of Williams alongside Simon Edwards, formerly of Fairground Attraction and fellow singer/songwriter Ginny Clee, releasing their self-titled CD in 2012.[16]
BBC.co.uk called it "An elegant, charming and quietly profound record",[17] and MOJO magazine "A whirling magimix of hypnotic, funky loops, vintage beats and sensuous harmonies".[18]
Willson Williams
Willson Williams featured Kathryn's collaboration with Scottish singer songwriter Dan Willson aka Withered Hand. Their 2024 release of the same name drew positive reviews suggesting 'they are bringing out the best in each other ....a feeling of dual purpose and fun resonating through all these tracks' [19] and 'a tremendously life-affirming thing'.[20] The album is one of ten shortlisted for Scottish Album Of The Year (SAY) Award 2024.[21]
Songwriting and art
Williams has been involved in writing retreats and sessions that enable songwriters to share, collaborate and produce ideas as well as learn new skills and techniques. Firstly tutoring at such events alongside Tom McRae, Samantha Parton and Chris Difford whose own retreats Williams has attended.[22] As a result, Williams has established her own writing residential courses which took place in 2014-16.
Williams was given a New Writing North commission as poet in residence at Alnwick Garden in 2006. An audio CD Words from the Garden was released in 2007 featuring writings from Williams, Nev Clay, Emma McGordon and Anna Woodford set in a soundscape by Caroline Beck, with music by Williams and Clay.[23]
As well as creating artwork for her debut album and Two, her collaboration with Neill MacColl, Williams produced the cover art for David Rotheray's Life Of Birds album.[24] and Mardous' "Revolution Over The Phone" single.[25]
Williams collaborated with The Guardian writer Tim Dowling, Chris Difford and Ed Harcourt on a 2014 Christmas single "Snowfall" in aid of The Guardian's Christmas charity appeal.[26]
She was selected as a judge for the British Poetry Society's Ted Hughes Award for Poetry 2016 in conjunction with poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.[27].. She also performed specially commissioned material for 'A Poet Laureate's Peterloo' commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre featuring Carol, Clare Shaw, Mark Pajak, presented by Ian McMillan and broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 11 August 2019 [28]
Martin Dominic Forbes Carthy MBE is an English singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in English folk music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, as well as later artists such as Richard Thompson, since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk revival in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s.
"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional English ballad. The song lists a number of impossible tasks given to a former lover who lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The "Scarborough/Whittingham Fair" variant was most common in Yorkshire and Northumbria, where it was sung to various melodies, often using Dorian mode, with refrains resembling "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" and "Then she'll be a true love of mine." It appears in Traditional Tunes by Frank Kidson published in 1891, who claims to have collected it from Whitby.
Christopher Henry Difford is an English musician. He is a founding member and songwriter of the rock group Squeeze.
Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson.
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2.
Mark "Boo" Hewerdine is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. His work includes lead singer and creative force behind The Bible, formed in the 1980s, and reformed in 1994, as well as solo recordings and work for film. He has also produced records by several artists, including a long association with Eddi Reader. He has been described as "one of Britain's most consistently accomplished songwriters".
Norma Christine Waterson was an English singer and songwriter, best known as one of the original members of The Watersons, a celebrated English traditional folk group. Other members of the group included her brother Mike Waterson and sister Lal Waterson, a cousin John Harrison and, in later incarnations of the group, her husband Martin Carthy.
The Bible are an English band. The band released two critically acclaimed albums in the mid-1980s and are best known for the independent chart hits "Graceland" and "Mahalia". Since The Bible's first split in 1990, lead singer Boo Hewerdine has maintained a solo career while the band itself has been intermittently active.
Angels & Electricity is the fourth studio album by Eddi Reader released in the UK on 11 May 1998.
Candyfloss and Medicine is the third studio album by Eddi Reader released in the UK on 8 July 1996, which peaked #24 in the UK charts.
Eddi Reader is the second studio album by the Scottish singer Eddi Reader released in the United Kingdom on 20 June 1994.
Maria Gilhooley, who records under the name Marry Waterson, is a singer, songwriter and visual artist. A member of the Waterson-Knight-Carthy family musical dynasty, Waterson is described as having "thrived on communal music making while developing highly original and distinctly English performance styles of [her] own."
Driftwood is the sixth studio album by Eddi Reader released in the UK on 8 October 2001.
The Last Temptation of Chris is an album by Chris Difford, one of the founding members of the new wave band Squeeze. It was released on 7 April 2008. This is his second solo album, a follow-up to I Didn't Get Where I Am in 2002. It is dedicated to Difford's brother, Les, who died before its release. The title is a play on The Last Temptation of Christ. The cover shows Difford slouched at a counter with a cup of coffee and wearing a black Homburg hat and a black Astrakhan coat, in homage to the comedian Tony Hancock as depicted in a photograph.
Nancy Kerr is an English folk musician and songwriter, specialising in the fiddle and singing. She is a Principal Lecturer in Folk Music at Newcastle University. She was the 2015 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Folk Singer of the Year".
Dan Willson, also known by his stage name Withered Hand, is an Edinburgh-based indie rock musician.
Crown Electric is Kathryn Williams 11th album, released by One Little Indian on 30 September 2013. Its title refers to the Memphis power company that Elvis Presley was employed by during his pre fame years and features in that album track "Gave It Away" "Elvis drove trucks for Crown Electric before he was The King". The Metro newspaper dubbed the album 'Magnificent and melancholic with Clash magazine suggesting the album added "a new dimension to her sound"
Two is Kathryn Williams 7th studio album, released by CAW Records on 3 March 2008.
The Quickening is the eighth album by Kathryn Williams and her first on the One Little Indian record label. The album was released on 22 February 2010.
Lisa Knapp is an English folk singer, songwriter, fiddle player and multi-instrumentalist. Her singing voice has been described as "crystal clear" and reminiscent of Anne Briggs or Jeannie Robertson. Two of her three albums have received five-starred reviews in the British national press.
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Kathryn Williams 2016
