Roy Williamson

Williamson's father was an advocate (a lawyer); his mother was a talented pianist. As a school boy he learned to play the recorder by ear, pretending to read music. The teacher found out and banned him from music lessons. He went to Wester Elchies School, then Aberlour House and Gordonstoun in Moray. He taught seamanship and navigation at Burghead before going to Edinburgh College of Art. It was there in 1955 that he met Ronnie Browne, with whom he would team up in The Corries. The partnership lasted almost thirty years.

Williamson's father committed suicide when Williamson was young. Williamson had a brother, Robert Buchanan, two daughters, Karen and Sheena, and was married twice--first to Violet Thomson and then to Nicky van Hurck, from Holland.

Williamson joined Bill Smith and Ron Cruikshank to form the "Corrie Folk Trio" in 1962.[1][2] The Trio's first performance was in the Waverley Bar in St Mary's Street, Edinburgh. After a few weeks Ron Cruikshank left because of glandular fever. They had already accepted an engagement at the Edinburgh Festival, so Williamson suggested that Ronnie Browne should be brought in to make up numbers.[2]At a later date, they added female Irish singer Paddie Bell to become the "Corrie Folk Trio and Paddie Bell". The audience was only eight people for the debut of this line-up, 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 was a perfectionist). This left Williamson and Browne to continue the group. Williamson was a gifted multi-instrumentalist; Browne was the singer. They 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, Angus. The enthusiastic response encouraged them to continue as a duo, and they became highly successful in Scotland. Williamson wrote Flower of Scotland at some point in 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.[3] 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.

As a young man, Roy Williamson played rugby for Edinburgh Wanderers,[5] which incidentally were arch rivals of the team for which Browne played. Williamson suffered from asthma.[6] He continued performing until 1989. He died of a brain tumour on 12 August 1990.