Mike Heron

Mike HeronBest known as the other half of the Incredible String Band, Mike Heron's solo career began while the ISB was still extant. That was Smiling Men With Bad Reputations, seemingly a means of using material that didn't quite fit into the String Band environment.

He had earlier played in Edinburgh, R&B and pop bands and it probably comes as no surprise to learn his solo recordings tend to be more rock-oriented than the Incredible String Band material. His first post-String Band outfit was effectively the last "electric" incarnation of the ISB minus Robin Williamson, gigging as Mike Heron's Reputation, later abbreviated to Heron.

From there, however, things tended to dry up, at least by comparison with the flood of String Band material that came before it and Williamson's prolific output (see here) . He was back on the road in the 1990s with Mike Heron's Incredible Acoustic Band, and from 1997 there were periodic String Band reunions,

Discography:

With the Incredible String Band: see here

1971 Smiling Men with Bad Reputations

1975 Mike Heron's Reputation

1977 Diamond Of Dreams (as Heron)

1979 Mike Heron

1988 The Glenrow Tapes

1996 Where the Mystics Swim

1998 Conflict Of Emotions

2002 Futurefield

2005 Echo Coming Back

© Ian Hughes 2012