“All human life can be found in folk music.” 

With over 50 years’ of playing and singing experience, Tony Wilson has the skills and passion to please and engage any audience with his varied repertoire and entertaining mixture of folk songs, old, original and new. Serving his apprenticeship in the late 60s/early 70s with residencies in the folk clubs of his native Northeast and adoptive Leeds, he played in all parts of the country turning professional in 1977. As a multi-instrumentalist/ singer-songwriter Tony also travelled and played at many of the major festivals throughout Europe until the early 80s and resumed his solo career on the folk scene in the UK until 1989. In 2017 he resumed his singing career, re-serving his apprenticeship with innumerable floorspots, and, as a guest performer, continues to captivate audiences with his versatility, wit and diverse range of material and musicianship.    

First Public Performance August 11th 1968
Irish Sessions Leeds 1972-1989
Burnt Peat & Pub Bands Leeds 1974 – 1980
Duo with Tom McConville 1975 – 1976
Solo performer 1977 – 79
Iona Folk Band 1978 – 1979 LP
Duo with Mick Doonan 1980 – 1982
Mathews’ Wilson Doonan Band 1980 – 1981 LP
Solo 1982 – 1988
UNNECESSARY POSTURING 1985  Cassette
DUO with Ian Fairbairn 1982 – 1989
BBC Radio Leeds Folkal Point 1985 – 1987
Festival Compere Whitby, Holmfirth, Alford, Newcastle, Sunderland, Dent, Derwentside + more 1985 –
Deadly Ernest Ceilidh Band 1989 – 2008
Duo Tom Napper 1993 – 1995
Duo Mick Roberts 1995 – 1996 CD
Storyteller 1999 – 2017
Multiple CDs Duo with Tom McConville 2016 –
Solo 2017 – Re-Recording 1985’s “A Certain Curiosity”                        

Music was just a part of his world. It was a mysterious noise that came from a speaker the size of Jodrell Bank. People would sing at the drop of an A flat and it all felt like a film, apart from the lack of an orchestra and a lot of swinging dancers in their one down, one along house. Potatoes were peeled and floors were vacuumed to snippets of a remembered phrase from last night’s visit to the Odeon. A door had been opened and he was going to race through it.