The Incredible String Band
 Born in the folk clubs of Edinburgh, the unique duo of Robin
Williamson and Mike Heron appeared to inhabit a parallel universe
in which Tennyson's The Lady Of Shallott was a Top
20 single in 1967.
Williamson and Heron sang
enchanting poetry in peculiar voices and played any instrument
that didn't require a plug - including recorder, sitar, dulcimer,
whistles, hand drums, pan pipes and Jews harps . . .
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1968) was regarded by
many critics as a quintessential example of hippie culture, with
its promotion of ideas such as communal living, eastern mysticism
and pantheism.
That same year, The Observer claimed The Incredible String
Band were "better than The Beatles".
During outtakes from The Beatles' Get Back sessions, John
Lennon and Paul McCartney can be
heard mocking the band and derogatorily calling them 'The
Incredible String Vest'.
The group projected a fantasy world of spirits, witches, primitive
rites and mythology that found a ready-made market in the gentle
years of 'flower power'. Cosmic folk? Acoustic psychedelia?
Whatever it was, it began to run dry on Changing Horses.
With their girlfriends Christina "Licorice" McKechnie
and Rose Simpson now full-time members, this 1969 set had little
of the magic of 1968's The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
or Wee Tam & The Big Huge.
By 1971, manager Joe Boyd had moved the group to Island
Records, and their glory days were over. The band finally called
it a day in summer 1974.
Christina "Licorice" McKechnie moved to California
and married. She was last seen hitch-hiking in the Arizona desert
in 1987, though her sister Frances reported receiving a letter
"sent from Sacramento" in 1990.
Still officially missing, Robin Williamson once reflected that McKechnie might now be "a perfectly happy mother-of-three
living with a cult".
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