B.C. Williamson - The Official Website

Who are we?

Sorry. B.C. Williamson is not real. He is merely a creation of Joe Ackerman and Matthew Rosen, both just 16 year olds from London. Everything you think you know about B.C. is not true - the album covers were made by us, as were the edited guitars and this website. However, everything we tell you from now on is true:

B.C. Williamson was born on a cold winter night in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho, London (obviously not really, it's a metaphor - remember, B.C. isn't real). We were explaining the history of the blues to an uninterested friend (who will remain nameless), and got bored of describing their time-old stories (you know, the one about BB King naming his guitar, 
or Robert Johnson selling his soul), so we decided to come up with our own bluesman, a sort of "super-bluesman", if you will. B.C. incorporated everything we loved about the blues: he was born under a bad sign in 1927 as the 7th child of the 7th son; on a crossroads one Friday 13th; on a bed of dead cats and smashed mirrors (under a ladder). He had several convoluted names (Johnny Ezekiel Robert Barnabus Cain "King" Williamson), was married countless times, and played classic, customized guitars (such as "Sharon", his 12-knobbed ES-335, modelled, of course, on BB King's "Lucille").

From then on, the idea of an imaginary musician blossomed - we designed album covers, created a MySpace page, a Facebook fan site, a Last.fm page, and, of course this website. Recently, a twitter account has been created too. 
But then we realised (rather belatedly) that musicians need music, and so we set about the task of writing and releasing B.C.'s greatest hits: Hits and Misses - The Very Best of B.C. Williamson. After a few days, we had somehow written about 16 songs, and, together with a couple of covers of blues standards and some alternate versions (1 live track, several outtakes, and, in 2 cases, german versions) we had a proper, if rather poorly mixed, greatest hits.We have now taken this a step further, with many projects in the future- a rock opera, an experimental dub/trance album and much more.

B.C.'s first re-released single (from 1953, don't you know) is live on iTunes, and the compilation of 22 or so tracks is available at the same place, or in a physical copy purchasable from this website. With a blues-rock-umentary in the pipeline, and a series of memoirs near to completion, B.C. Williamson has accomplished far more than we could ever had imagined in the one year he has been alive (though surprisingly little in the 83 years we have said he's been going.)

Thanks.

Limited edition signed photo of B.C.'s creators