The Incredible String Band

With their quirky songs and left field approach to instrumentation and presentation, The Incredible String Band were one of the most colourful, challenging and influential groups to emerge in the psychedelic era of the 1960s. Their roots were in folk music with Clive Palmer and Robin Williamson first meeting at a folk club, the Crown in Edinburgh, in 1963. They originally formed an acoustic duo and took the name The Incredible String Band after the addition of rock musician Mike Heron, who ran the all-night Clive's Incredible Folk Club in Glasgow, where they played as the house band. Spotted by entrepreneur/producer Joe Boyd, they were signed to Elektra Records and instantly made a mark with the outlandish songs and stylised vocals that characterised their self-titled debut album in 1966. The band temporarily split to go travelling, but Heron and Williamson subsequently re-formed as a duo, making a big dent on the folk world with a prestigious appearance at the Newport Folk Festival and regular shows at London's most important folk venue, Les Cousins. With Danny Thompson on double bass they released their second album, The 5,000 Spirits Or Layers Of The Onion, including their classic tracks The Hedgehog's Song, The First Girl I Loved and The Mad Hatter's Song. They had their biggest success, however, in 1968, releasing two brilliantly inventive albums The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and the double Wee Tam And The Big Huge, taking them out of the folk scene into major venues. They appeared at the famous Woodstock Festival in 1969 and, after moving into a commune in Wales, they diversified into multi-media experiments with Malcolm Le Maistre. With their respective girlfriends Rose Simpson and Licorice McKechnie added to the line-up, the band's distinctive style dissipated and moved into musical theatre with the dance musical U. It was a commercial failure, however, and their popularity diminished as a result, though they continued to record and play live for several more years, before embarking on solo careers. They reunited in 1999 with Williamson's wife Bina in the line-up and continued with various other additions until splitting again in 2006; yet the band remain seminal influences on the psych folk movement.

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