Kathryn Williams & Withered Hand

We’re kicking off a big weekend at The Bear Club with an absolutely stellar duo performance from Kathryn Williams & Withered Hand.

Dan Willson is Scotland’s acclaimed singer-songwriter, known as Withered Hand. Over the last 15 years, he has released three albums and several EPs, touring internationally and amassing a devoted following while staying true to his DIY roots in the underground music scene.

Kathryn Williams is a Mercury Music Prize-nominated English singer-songwriter with an impressive 16-album discography, who has collaborated with figures like poet Dame Carol Ann Duffy and author Laura Barnett. She has also written songs with renowned artists such as Paul Weller, Neill MacColl, and Michele and Romeo Stodart. She has written a novel, The Ormering Tide, hosts her own podcast, Before the Light Goes Out, and tutors at the Arvon and Moniack Mhor Foundations. She also possesses one of the most beautiful voices in folk.

The collaboration between Kathryn and Dan began in 2019 at a Spiegeltent in Edinburgh during a Book Festival event curated by Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen. Their co-writing journey initiated with a tweet from Kathryn to Dan, inquiring, “What kind of songs would we write together, and what would they sound like?”. Initially, Dan was convinced she had sent the tweet to the wrong person, but curiosity led Kathryn to Edinburgh, where they wrote two songs together. Dan then traveled to Newcastle, where Kath lives, and they wrote more.

Dan describes the collaborative process as talking and spending time together, and then the next time they sit down to write, it’s like a synthesis of late-night kitchen conversations distilled into the songs. He says it’s hard to separate who’s done what, and where the songs sprang from.