Roy Murdoch Buchanan Williamson (25 June 1936 – 12 August 1990) was a
Scottish songwriter and folk musician, most notably with
The Corries
The Corries were a Scottish folk group that emerged from the Scottish folk revival of the early 1960s. The group was a trio from their formation until 1966 when founder Bill Smith left the band but Roy Williamson and Ronnie Browne continued ...
. Williamson is best known for writing "
Flower of Scotland
"Flower of Scotland" is a Scottish song, frequently performed at special occasions and sporting events as an unofficial national anthem of Scotland.
The song was composed in the mid-1960s by Roy Williamson of the folk group the Corries. It w ...
", which has become the de facto
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European n ...
of
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
used at international sporting events.
Early life
Roy Williamson's father, Archibald Moir Macrae Williamson, was an advocate (a lawyer); his mother, Agnes Ethel Cumming Buchanan Williamson, was a talented pianist who frequently took her two sons, Robert and Roy, to musical events. As a schoolboy, Williamson learned to play the
recorder
Recorder or The Recorder may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper
* ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
* ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
by ear, pretending to read music. A teacher found out and banned him from music lessons. He went to
Wester Elchies School, then
Aberlour House and
Gordonstoun
Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray, Scotland. It is named after the estate owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century; the school now uses this estate as its campus. It is located ...
in
Moray
Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland.
Between 1975 ...
. He taught seamanship and navigation at
Burghead
Burghead ( sco, Burgheid or ''The Broch'', gd, Am Broch) is a small town in Moray, Scotland, about north-west of Elgin. The town is mainly built on a peninsula that projects north-westward into the Moray Firth, surrounding it by water on t ...
before going to
Edinburgh College of Art
Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...
. It was there in 1955 that he met
Ronnie Browne
Ronald Grant Browne ("The Voice") (20 August 1937 in Edinburgh, Lothian, Scotland) is a Scottish folk musician and songwriter, who is a founding member of The Corries.
Biography
Browne was born in Edinburgh to John Albert ' ...
, with whom he would team up in The Corries. The partnership lasted almost thirty years. Williamson and Browne also shared a passion for rugby, having played wing against each other for
Edinburgh Wanderers
Edinburgh Wanderers is a former rugby union club, founded in 1868. It was latterly a tenant of the Scottish Rugby Union, playing home fixtures at Murrayfield Stadium for nearly 75 years. In 1997 it merged with Murrayfield RFC to form Murrayfie ...
and Boroughmuir, respectively.
Williamson's father committed suicide when his son was eight years old. Williamson had a brother, Robert Buchanan Williamson, two daughters, Karen and Sheena, and was married twice—first to Violet Thomson and then to Nicolette van Hurck, from Holland.
Musical career
Williamson joined Bill Smith and Ron Cruikshank to form the "Corrie Folk Trio" in 1962.
The Trio's first performance was in the
Waverley Bar on St Mary's Street, Edinburgh. After a few weeks Ron Cruikshank left because he had contracted glandular fever. The Trio had already accepted an engagement at the
Edinburgh Festival
__NOTOC__
This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fe ...
, so Williamson suggested that
Ronnie Browne
Ronald Grant Browne ("The Voice") (20 August 1937 in Edinburgh, Lothian, Scotland) is a Scottish folk musician and songwriter, who is a founding member of The Corries.
Biography
Browne was born in Edinburgh to John Albert ' ...
should be asked to join the group in order that it would have three members again.
At a later date, the group added female Northern Irish singer
Paddie Bell
Patricia Margaret Bell (née Simpson, 8 April 1931 – 3 August 2005) professionally known as Paddie Bell, was a Scottish folk singer and musician, born in Northern Ireland.
Biography
Bell was born as Patricia Margaret Simpson, in Belfast, Nort ...
to become the "Corrie Folk Trio and Paddie Bell". The audience was only eight people for the debut of the Trio, but by the end of the festival it was a full house at every performance.
By 1966, Paddie Bell and Bill Smith had left, with Bell saying that she wanted to perform songs that were different from the ones the Trio sang and Smith having fallen out with Browne (Smith cites that he himself was a perfectionist). These developments left Williamson and Browne to continue the group. Williamson was a singer who was also a gifted multi-instrumentalist; Browne, by contrast, was a gifted singer who had learned to play various musical instruments. The two men cancelled all engagements for a few months to practice intensively. Under a new name, "The Corries", they performed at the Jubilee Arms Hotel in
Cortachy
Cortachy is a village in Angus, Scotland. It lies in at the mouth of Glen Clova, on the River South Esk, four miles north of Kirriemuir. Nearby lies Cortachy Castle, seat of the Earls of Airlie
Earl of Airlie is a title of the peera ...
, Angus. The enthusiastic response encouraged them to continue as a duo, and they became highly successful in Scotland and eventually throughout much of the world. Williamson wrote
Flower of Scotland
"Flower of Scotland" is a Scottish song, frequently performed at special occasions and sporting events as an unofficial national anthem of Scotland.
The song was composed in the mid-1960s by Roy Williamson of the folk group the Corries. It w ...
during the 1960s; it is currently the most popular candidate for a Scottish national anthem. The song now represents Scotland at international rugby and international football matches, and at the
Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...
. It was sung in the 2007 Commonwealth Games by Ronnie Browne, though he swore never to sing it again, saying that it was a struggle not to be overcome with emotion.
Combolin
Williamson, whose many talents ranged from art to woodworking, co-designed a boat named The Sheena Margaret, which was named for his younger daughter with his first wife, Violet. In the summer of 1969 he invented the 'combolins', two complementary instruments that combined several instruments into a single one. Browne's instrument contained a
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
with a guitar (along with four bass strings operated with slides); Williamson's had a guitar as well as the 12-string Spanish
bandurria
The bandurria is a plucked chordophone from Spain, similar to the mandolin and bandola, primarily used in Spanish folk music, but also found in former Spanish colonies.
Instrument development
Prior to the 18th century, the bandurria had a round ...
, the latter being an instrument he had played since the early days of the Corrie Folk Trio.
Originally conceived as a way to combine several of the many instruments they carried around on tour – the Corries' long row of chairs behind them on stage bearing instruments is legendary – the combolins in fact became an additional two instruments for the tour van. Most often, Browne played the guitar/mandolin instrument with bass strings, and Williamson the other, which also had 13 sympathetic strings designed to resonate like the Indian
sitar
The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in ...
.
The wood for the combolins was obtained from antique hardwood furniture as well as premium grade Tyrolean
spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...
, and displayed Williamson's artistic embellishments in silver and mother of pearl. The Corries' album, Strings and Things (1970), was specifically designed to display the new instruments: It featured detailed descriptions of them on the rear sleeve.
Williamson had advertised the combolins a year prior to completing them and had first tested them only a short while before a concert but found that they sounded terrible. He had to quickly rebuild them and learn to play them with Browne before the concert day.
When the combolins were played, Browne and Williamson often switched places from left to right respectively to right and left.
Health problems and death
As a young man, Roy Williamson had played rugby for
Edinburgh Wanderers
Edinburgh Wanderers is a former rugby union club, founded in 1868. It was latterly a tenant of the Scottish Rugby Union, playing home fixtures at Murrayfield Stadium for nearly 75 years. In 1997 it merged with Murrayfield RFC to form Murrayfie ...
, the rivals of Boroughmuir, the team for which Browne had played. Williamson suffered throughout his life from
asthma
Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, cou ...
; he usually discontinued his asthma treatments before a show or a concert. He continued performing until late in 1989, when his final illness became apparent - he died of a brain tumour on 12 August 1990.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williamson, Roy
1936 births
1990 deaths
20th-century Scottish male musicians
Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art
Bodhrán players
Edinburgh Wanderers RFC players
National anthem writers
People educated at Gordonstoun
People educated at Liberton High School
Scottish folk musicians
Scottish songwriters
Tin whistle players
Deaths from brain cancer in Scotland
20th-century flautists