Kathryn Williams
Encyclopedia
Kathryn Williams is an English
singer-songwriter
.
after earning an art degree in the city. 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, bringing her to the attention of a wider public. A spell with EastWest / Atlantic followed (Old Low Light in 2002, and the Relations
covers
album in 2004), before she returned to her independent roots with 2005's Over Fly Over. She released her sixth album, Leave to Remain
, on Caw in 2006.
Williams has collaborated with Neill Maccoll, John Martyn, Badmarsh and Shri, Thea Gilmore
, Tobias Froberg and Ted Barnes. Two, released in 2008, is the first project to be released under joint names. Williams and Maccoll co-wrote most of the album, with the exception of "Innocent When You Dream", which is a Tom Waits
song. Two further songs on Two are written solely by Williams "6 a.m. Corner" and "Blue Fields". Williams played guitars, mellotron, Hammond organ and harmonium on the album.
, Caw Records, to release her music. After her second album, Little Black Numbers, was nominated for the Mercury Prize, she signed a licensing deal with Eastwest Records. Little Black Numbers reached #70 in the UK Albums Chart
in 2001. The follow-up, Old Low Light reached #56 in 2002.
Her influences include Nina Simone
, Nick Drake
, Joni Mitchell
, Bob Dylan
, John Lennon
, Simon And Garfunkel
and Velvet Underground. She listens to classical and Cuban music, as well as artists such as PJ Harvey
and Nick Cave
, though she says she will always go back to the influences she grew up with.
She has sung on the Badmarsh & Shri
album and worked with Twisted Nerve
artist Pedro. In 2006, she was a special guest on Tom McRae
's, Hotel Cafe Tour
. Following this, Williams completed a tour with Tobias Froberg as support, to promote her album Leave to Remain. Williams released Two on 3 March 2008, written with and featuring Neill MacColl.
, in October 2006. 'Words from the Garden' is a poets in residence involving Williams, Nev Clay, Emma McGordon and Anna Woodford. This CD is a selection of their writings from The Alnwick Garden over the winter of 2006/07, set in a soundscape by Caroline Beck, with music by Williams and Clay. In addition, Williams recorded a cover of Tim Buckley
's "Buzzin' Fly" for the 2005 tribute album
, Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
.
Background
Williams was born in Liverpool, and now lives in Newcastle upon TyneNewcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
after earning an art degree in the city. Williams released her first album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, Dog Leap Stairs on her own Caw Records label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
in 1999 with a budget of £80. The follow-up, Little Black Numbers
Little Black Numbers
Little Black Numbers is the second studio album by Kathryn Williams released by Caw Records in 2000 in the United Kingdom. The phrase "Little Black Numbers" often refers to underwear, but in this case seems to reflect the fact that several of these songs take a dark view at human nature. "We Came...
, garnered a Mercury Prize
Mercury Prize
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize and currently known as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established by the British Phonographic Industry and British...
nomination, bringing her to the attention of a wider public. A spell with EastWest / Atlantic followed (Old Low Light in 2002, and the Relations
Relations (album)
-Track listing:#"In a Broken Dream" – 3:37#"Birds" – 2:26#"Thirteen" – 2:56#"Hallelujah" – 5:08...
covers
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
album in 2004), before she returned to her independent roots with 2005's Over Fly Over. She released her sixth album, Leave to Remain
Leave to Remain (album)
Leave to Remain is the sixth studio album by Kathryn Williams released by Caw Records on October 1, 2006 in the United Kingdom.-Track listing:# "Blue onto You" - 2:02# "Let It Happen" - 3:35# "Sustain Pedal" - 2:56# "Stevie" - 3:03# "Sandy L" - 3:53...
, on Caw in 2006.
Williams has collaborated with Neill Maccoll, John Martyn, Badmarsh and Shri, Thea Gilmore
Thea Gilmore
Thea Eve Gilmore is a British female singer-songwriter. She began her career working in a recording studio, where she was discovered by her now long-time collaborator, producer and sometime co-songwriter Nigel Stonier, whom she married in October 2005.-Career:Gilmore was born in Oxford to Irish...
, Tobias Froberg and Ted Barnes. Two, released in 2008, is the first project to be released under joint names. Williams and Maccoll co-wrote most of the album, with the exception of "Innocent When You Dream", which is a Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
song. Two further songs on Two are written solely by Williams "6 a.m. Corner" and "Blue Fields". Williams played guitars, mellotron, Hammond organ and harmonium on the album.
Commercial success
Her next step was recording some of her music onto CD. These quickly sold at her gigs, so Williams set up her own record labelRecord label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Caw Records, to release her music. After her second album, Little Black Numbers, was nominated for the Mercury Prize, she signed a licensing deal with Eastwest Records. Little Black Numbers reached #70 in the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
in 2001. The follow-up, Old Low Light reached #56 in 2002.
Her influences include Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, Nick Drake
Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Though he is best known for his sombre guitar based songs, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, Simon And Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel are an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957 and had their first success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the...
and Velvet Underground. She listens to classical and Cuban music, as well as artists such as PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
and Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, though she says she will always go back to the influences she grew up with.
She has sung on the Badmarsh & Shri
Badmarsh & Shri
Badmarsh & Shri are an electronic/trip hop duo from London, UK.- Formation :Prior to their formation, Badmarsh worked at the reggae studio Easy Street; which was hiring PA equipment to a nightclub called Labyrinth...
album and worked with Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve
Twisted Nerve is a 1968 British psychological thriller film about a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends, under the name of Georgie, to be mentally retarded in order to be near Susan, a girl he has become infatuated with, killing those who get in his way.-Plot:The film opens with Martin...
artist Pedro. In 2006, she was a special guest on Tom McRae
Tom McRae
Tom McRae is an English singer-songwriter.-Career:The son of two Church of England vicars, McRae sang in the church choir and as a teen experimented with his mother's guitar...
's, Hotel Cafe Tour
Hotel Cafe Tour
The Hotel Cafe Tour is the brainchild of Cary Brothers , a North American singer-songwriter,who has been a regular performer at the Hotel Café venue in Hollywood.Having played in the Hotel Cafe for many years, and enjoyed its...
. Following this, Williams completed a tour with Tobias Froberg as support, to promote her album Leave to Remain. Williams released Two on 3 March 2008, written with and featuring Neill MacColl.
The Crayonettes
Williams collaborated with friend and 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 inhouse focus group. The results mixed folk, 1950s crooners, electro and hip-hop with songs touching on topics such as robots in the rain, brushing your teeth and pirates on the bus.Albums
- Dog Leap Stairs (1999)
- Little Black NumbersLittle Black NumbersLittle Black Numbers is the second studio album by Kathryn Williams released by Caw Records in 2000 in the United Kingdom. The phrase "Little Black Numbers" often refers to underwear, but in this case seems to reflect the fact that several of these songs take a dark view at human nature. "We Came...
(2000) - Old Low Light (2002)
- RelationsRelations (album)-Track listing:#"In a Broken Dream" – 3:37#"Birds" – 2:26#"Thirteen" – 2:56#"Hallelujah" – 5:08...
(2004) - Over Fly Over (2005)
- Leave to RemainLeave to Remain (album)Leave to Remain is the sixth studio album by Kathryn Williams released by Caw Records on October 1, 2006 in the United Kingdom.-Track listing:# "Blue onto You" - 2:02# "Let It Happen" - 3:35# "Sustain Pedal" - 2:56# "Stevie" - 3:03# "Sandy L" - 3:53...
(2006) - Two (2008) with Neill MacColl
- The Quickening (2010)
Singles
- "The Fade EP"
- "Soul to Feet"
- "Jasmine Hoop"
- "No One Takes You Home"
- "In a Broken Dream"
- "Shop Window"
- "Beachy HeadBeachy HeadBeachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...
" - "Hollow"
- "When"
- "Come With Me" (2008)
B-sides
- "The Fade EP" – "Kiss the Forehead", "Some Kind of Wonderful"
- "Jasmine Hoop" – "Foreign Skies"
- "No One Takes You Home" – "Without Beat of Drum"
Miscellaneous
Her track, "Night Baking", appeared on the charity album, Colours Are BrighterColours Are Brighter
Colours Are Brighter is a charity record which was released on Rough Trade Records on 16 October 2006, all proceeds going to Save the Children...
, in October 2006. 'Words from the Garden' is a poets in residence involving Williams, Nev Clay, Emma McGordon and Anna Woodford. This CD is a selection of their writings from The Alnwick Garden over the winter of 2006/07, set in a soundscape by Caroline Beck, with music by Williams and Clay. In addition, Williams recorded a cover of Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...
's "Buzzin' Fly" for the 2005 tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
, Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley
Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley
Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley is a studio album performed by various artists in tribute to 1960s musician Tim Buckley, and his son, also a musician, Jeff Buckley...
.
External links
- Official website for Kathryn Williams
- Official website for Kathryn Williams & Neill MacColl
- Video interview with Kathryn Williams and Kathryn Williams acoustic session from BBC Liverpool08
- Folk Radio UK Interview by Colin Irwin