Wilson Williams

Wilson began playing guitar at the age of 15 and by 1974 was performing professionally. He studied at Humberside College for a degree in Food Science and Microbiology, later teaching food hygiene/microbiology. He continued to play guitar and, influenced by contemporary electric blues players, he formed his own blues-based band, the Mighty Houserockers in 1981. Wilson developed a good local following in the Midlands region and over subsequent years played at numerous UK and European blues festivals, including Colne, Luxembourg, Cork, Geithoorn and Oudenaarde…

This CD features the great pianist Mary Lou Williams during her earliest period. She is heard in 1927 on six selections with The Synco Jazzers (a small group that included her then-husband John Williams on alto) and then on the first 19 selections ever recorded under her own name. Performed during the long period when she was the regular pianist with Andy Kirk's 12 Clouds of Joy, Williams is featured on two hot stride solos in 1930, leading trios in 1936 and 1938, playing "Little Joe from Chicago" unaccompanied in 1939 and heading septets in 1940; among her sidemen were trumpeter Harold "Shorty" Baker and the legendary tenor Dick Wilson. Many of the compositions were written by Williams including "Night Life," "New Froggy Bottom," "Mary's special," and "Scratchin' the Gravel;" her version of Jelly Roll Morton's "The Pearls" is a highpoint.

For this Classics CD (one in a series of Teddy Wilson releases that reissue all of the pianist's early recordings as a leader), Billie Holiday is featured on nine of the titles including "I'll Get By," "Mean to Me," "Foolin' Myself," and "Easy Living"; all of those gems also feature tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Much rarer are three songs with singer Helen Ward, a vocal by Frances Hunt ("Big Apple"), three by the forgotten vocalist Boots Castle, and five instrumentals. It is a pity that the selections without Holiday were not reissued separately since the Lady Day performances are generally quite common. Such immortal sidemen are heard from as Young, trumpeters Cootie Williams, Harry James and Buck Clayton, altoist Johnny Hodges, baritonist Harry Carney, and clarinetists Buster Bailey and Benny Goodman; this music is essential in one form or another.

Steven Wilson fans have been primed for The Future Bites since he released To the Bone in 2017. That record, and the preceding 4½ EP, were deliberately "pop" responses to his three-album dalliance with prog – Raven That Refused to Sing, Hand. Cannot. Erase, and Grace for Drowning. In contrast to the above, The Future Bites is a slick exercise in Wilson's oft-articulated love of synth pop and electronic music. It's a loose concept set about the treachery that rampant consumerism foists upon the world, and the danger a technological society imposes on personal identity…

When Stiltskin’s debut album "The Mind’s Eye" was released in 1994, Ray Wilson was almost totally unknown in the Genesis camp. Celebrated as a grunge sensation, Stiltskin were hardly in the same league with Genesis. The rest is already history. Ray became singer with Genesis, but only for a brief stint, and Stiltskin disbanded even before that because of arguments in the band. Nothing new there in the music business…

With Heart only intermittently active in the early 21st century, Ann Wilson took the opportunity to release her first-ever solo album, something her sister Nancy Wilson, Heart's other half, took care of back in 1999. But where Nancy's solo debut was a live, acoustic effort comprised of both original material and covers, Ann has gone the nearly-all-covers route for the Ben Mink-produced Hope & Glory; only one song, the album-closing "Little Problems, Little Lies," comes from Wilson's own pen…

John Wilson, today’s foremost conductor of film and British light music, finds himself the centre of attention this summer with a slew of performances and media appearances that cast the spotlight on his singular specialty, and particularly the music of Eric Coates, as heard on the Avie release ‘London Again’. A new album from John Wilson and the RLPO on Avie entitled ‘Made in Britain’, due for release in October, will feature music by Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Walton amongst others.