"The Biography"

Scroll down for instrument list and discography.

Born in West Yorkshire in 1953 Tim first played in front of an audience playing piano with his Grandma in the village of Shelf. In 1963 he played guitar and sang with the school boy pop band ‘The Modbeats’ By 1974 he had taken up a few more instruments (thanks to the influence of the Incredible String Band) and formed a band called ‘Argey Bargey’ which soon paired down to a duo, a format that lasted until the formation of ‘The Yorkshire Miracle’ in 1977. The Miracle released the single ‘The CAMRA Song’ / 'The Redeemin' Grace',before expanding to a 5 piece and becoming ‘Ploughshare, which in turn became a duo of Tim and Pete Watson. After a number of years playing mainly solo he teamed up with Helen Porthouse to form ‘New Moon’. After Helen left she was briefly replaced by Jane Mellonie before concentrating on solo work which saw the release of the ‘No Amnesty!’ album, described as ‘..magic of the first order...’ by Folk Roots.

Touring with Third Theatre and working with Peadar Long in Moon de Lune and Kitsyke Will took up the next few years with guest appearances on albums by Pete Coe, Janet Russell and a tracks on the Incredible String Band tribute albums ‘The Hangmans Beautiful Granddaughter’ and 'Winged We Were'.

Tim has played the world famous Glastonbury Festival twice and worked all sizes of venues from small clubs to arenas. These days Tim is primarily a solo artist, though he still plays with Peadar Long in Moon de Lune (see the Moon de Lune page) and occasional extended Irish bands. He also began doing 'human jukebox' gigs in 2005. These involve small private parties where Tim plays informal music, including material that is new to him but requested by the guests. It's great fun for all concerned.

The new album , Invicta, is due out in 2006 and features special guests annA rydeR, Gary Boyle, Rachel Patti, Dave Pegg, Sian and Ceri Pedrick, Harry Hamer, James O'Dwyer, Debra Cowan and Peadar Long, plus some others not yet confirmed.

Tim plays in the region of 100 instruments in the categories of fretted (guitars, mandolins, dulcimers, sitar etc), strings (violins, viola, sarangai etc) wind (whistles, recorders etc), keyboards and reeds (clarinet, saxophone) amongst even more esoteric specimens. See the sessions page if you would like Tim to play on your recordings or sit in with your band for that special gig.

 

What Instruments?

I have been asked to list what I play so here we go. The list is based on the instruments I own, or at least have borrowed for sessions. Hence there is no mention of saxes other than alto, but I can find my way around a soprano, tenor etc.

GUITARS; Acoustic 6 and 12 string, electric guitar, classical guitar (I have both small bodied curve backed Spanish style and flat backed classical style), lap steel guitar (I bought it for a country band I joined which imploded before I used it with them), acoustic and electric bass guitars. There is a selection of acoustic guitars. the main one being a Fender and there is a nice little German parlour guitar. I also use a portable electric with built in amp and speakers, a high strung guitar for slide work and a backpacker acoustic. I usually stick to standard tuning on guitars these days as other instruments do the open tunings just as well, but on occasions I'll use DADGBE.

MANDOLINS; acoustic and electric mandolin, mandola and mando-cello.

BANJOS; 5 string banjo, guitjo (6 string banjo), dojo (dobro banjo; dobro body with 5 string neck), banjolele and banjolin (see also shamisen).

OTHER FRETTED; Bouzouki, cuatro, saz, Appalachian dulcimer, bouzaz (a bowl back bouzouki strung with 4 nylon strings tuned to open F), a strange African instrument made of a light solid wood with two strings and raised frets, ukelele, charanga, tenor ukelele, soprano ukuleles (Including a rather nice pink Flying V one!) bandouria, shamisan, sitar. I also have a South American tipple (like a multi strung ukulele) but I've never got round to tuning and playing it.

OTHER STRINGS; Japan banjo (not a banjo, more a cross between a hurdy gurdy and a dulcimer), harp, zither, autoharp, ghopijand, oud, shamisen and a small hammer dulcimer.

BOWED INSTRUMENTS; violin, viola, 'cello, string bass, bowed psaltry, sarangai, gimbri, Elizabethan bumble bee fiddle. I am also working on coverting a fiddle into a hardanger, which I hope to have sorted during 2006. There is also a 'gimbrilin' which I'm working on using a banjo like body, made from a tabor, and a standard violin neck. When I've sorted the wrinkles out it should be interesting.

KEYBOARDS; Piano (acoustic and electric), organ, synth, harpsichord, harmonium, melodica (see also piano accordion), Stylophone, Indian harmonium. See also toy chime piano.

FREE REED; Harmonica, (lots of these all over the place) anglo concertina, melodions (single row usually. I have D melodions, and a baby one in C. I also have a wheezy old chromatic 2 row which can only manage C sharp.) piano accordion.

REED; Shanhai, clarinet, alto saxophone, bagpipes, bombarde, shawm, chanter, crumhorn, Indian clarinet.

BRASS; My big weak area, though I do own a trumpet, cornet and trombone which had a jokey outing on 'Anger and Kiss'. I did feature the trombone in a few numbers during my brief stint with a blues band. And bugle, which you can also hear on 'Anger and Kiss'.

WIND; Recorders (sopranino, descant, soprano, tenor, alto and bass), concert flute, wooden flutes, piccalos, penny whistles (all sorts of these. Mainly metal, but some in wood or plastic. I use Clarkes a lot, well you would having played the founder of the company on television!), ocarina (a nice selection of these.), shakahuchi, panpipes, jug, didgeridoo, didgeribone, a number of ethnic whistle styled instruments in various keys. Jews harp (metal and bamboo variants), kazoo, Thailand pan-pipes.

PERCUSSION; Kit drums, djembe, electric percussion (manual and programmed), bohdran, congas and a huge selection of hand drums (bongo, dhol, djembe, water drum (an office cooler empty water bottle; it's great!) etc.), shakers, (eggs, oranges, big, small, you name it!) , friction drums, rainstick, thunder drum, and scrapers.

TUNED PERCUSSION; Glockenspiel, anklang, dingklik, xylophone, Chinese chime bars, hand bells, dan t'rung (Vietnamese bamboo xylophone), tubular bells, toy chime piano, thumb piano.

 

 

Discography

Solo

Why Is A Mouse When It Spins? (2004) (Inside Motion)

No Room! (2002) 3 track CD (Inside Motion)

No Amnesty! (1985) re-released on CD 2001 (Apricot Music, CD Inside Motion)

Anger & Kiss (2000) (Inside Motion)

Another Pennine Day (limited edition cassette) (Apricot Music)

Festival Moon (limited edition cassette) (Apricot Music)

With The Yorkshire Miracle

The CAMRA Song/The Redeemin’ Grace (1977) vinyl single (Look Records)

With Third Theatre

Dispossessed (1989) (Apricot Music)

Music (1991) (Apricot Music)

Community Projects

The Richmond Big Wallop EP

Hear Us Now!

I Could Be..

Rolling Down the Hill

Empty Fields

Around the World to Braemar

Rainforest Songs from Horton in Ribblesdale

Helping Each Other at Greatwood

The Haworth Arts Festival 2006 Songs

With Baccapella

The Haworth Set (Unaccompanied band)

With Other Artists

Bright Shining Morning (Janet Russell) (Harbour Town Records)

Rebel without Applause (Trevor Hyatt)

It’s a Mean Old Scene (Pete Coe) (Back Shift Music)

Back to the Top

Ephemera (The Puzzle Hall Poets) (Woodman Records)

Games for Gambia? (Lucy Moon)

The Whitby Dance Suite (Blaize)

The Transports (Various) (Free Reed)

Guy Manning

Clive Palmer

In the Midwinter (Various) (Free Reed)