Robbie McIntosh
Encyclopedia
Robbie McIntosh is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

. McIntosh is well known as a session guitarist and member of The Pretenders
The Pretenders
The Pretenders are an English rock band formed in Hereford, England in March 1978. The original band consisted of initiator and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde , James Honeyman-Scott , Pete Farndon , and Martin Chambers...

 from 1982 until 1987. In 1988 he began doing session guitar work for Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 joining his band full time until early 1994. He continues to do session work and has performed both as a sideman with John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

 and with his own band, The Robbie McIntosh Band.

Early influences

McIntosh started playing guitar at the age of 10, picking out things from any records listened to at the time. He had two older sisters, and their record collections became early influences: Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Spencer Davis Group, Jimi Hendrix etc. His father's love of jazz was also a factor: Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...

, Django Rheinhardt, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 - and his mother plays the piano.

At age 13, he started taking classical guitar lessons from a teacher called Michael Lewin. He continued through to Grade 8 (aged 18).

"Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...

 was the first blues artist that captured my imagination; I've been besotted with blues music ever since."

70% Proof

McIntosh's first band was called 70% Proof. They played original material and covers of Humble Pie
Humble Pie (band)
Humble Pie was a rock band from England, finding success both in the UK and the US. They are remembered for songs such as "Black Coffee" "30 Days in the Hole", "I Don't Need No Doctor", and "Natural Born Bugie"...

, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...

, Free
Free (band)
Free were an English rock band, formed in London in 1968, best known for their 1970 signature song "All Right Now". They disbanded in 1973 and lead singer Paul Rodgers went on to become a frontman of the band Bad Company along with Simon Kirke on drums; lead guitarist Paul Kossoff died from a...

 and Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

, amongst others. "The other guys in the band (Paul Eager, Russell Ayles and Graham Mincher) had all left school, so we used to rehearse on Sunday afternoons at the local dump works canteen. We were pretty good really."

The Foster Brothers

McIntosh took A-levels at school, and had plans to do biology at university but failed miserably, so joined up with older Raynes Park boys Graham and Malcolm Foster in their band The Foster Brothers. He toured and recorded with them throughout 1977; the band gradually folded in early 1978.

Filthy McNasty/Night

After the Foster Bros., McIntosh worked for about 6 months as a lorry driver for a builder's supply company, delivering sand, cement, bricks and the like on a 3-ton lorry; he became an expert tipper. Completely out of the blue, he got a call from Chris Thompson
Chris Thompson
Chris Thompson, also known as Chris Hamlet Thompson is an English singer and guitarist known both for his work with Manfred Mann's Earth Band and for his solo accomplishments.- Biography :...

 who, at the time, was the singer in Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Manfred Mann's Earth Band is a British progressive rock group formed in 1971 by Manfred Mann.-Formation:Having started in the 1960s with a British band that had such hits as "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" and "The Mighty Quinn", then moving on to Jazz Fusion with Manfred Mann's Chapter Three, Manfred's third...

. He had an outfit called Filthy McNasty who played a lot at The Bridge House, Canning Town, The Golden Lion, Fulham, etc. Thompson asked McIntosh to join as lead guitarist. In November 1978 the band went to L.A. to record with Richard Perry
Richard Perry
Richard Perry is an American music producer. Perry began as a performer in his adolescence, but shifted gears after graduating college and rose through the late 1960s and early 1970s to become a highly successful and popular record producer with over a dozen gold records to his credit by 1982...

 for his Planet Record label. The name of the band was changed to Night.

The band toured in America for most of 1979, supporting The Doobie Brothers
The Doobie Brothers
The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band. The group has sold over 40 million units worldwide throughout their career. The Doobie Brothers were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.-Original incarnation:...

.

Chris Thompson and the Islands

Night split sometime in 1980, but Thompson and McIntosh stayed together to form Chris Thompson and the Islands with Malcolm Foster, Paul "Wix" Wickens (who would also join McIntosh in Paul McCartney's band in 1989) and Mick Clews. Despite many gigs and various bouts of recording, a deal was never secured and McIntosh left at the end of 1981.

Dean Martin's Dog

Living in Kingston at the time, McIntosh formed a fun band to play local pubs called Dean Martin's Dog, with Malcolm Foster, Mick Clews, Jez Wire, Rupert Black and Mike Dudley. Not surprisingly it won band name of the year in Time Out magazine.

"Even when I'd joined The Pretenders the DMD gigs continued when I could fit them in. We played a bit of everything. Good band."

Joins The Pretenders

Sometime in 1977/78 McIntosh met and became friends with James Honeyman-Scott
James Honeyman-Scott
James Honeyman-Scott , commonly referred to as "Jimmy", was an English rock guitarist, songwriter and founding member of the band The Pretenders....

. It was this friendship that led Honeyman-Scott to contact McIntosh in 1982 with a view to his joining The Pretenders
The Pretenders
The Pretenders are an English rock band formed in Hereford, England in March 1978. The original band consisted of initiator and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde , James Honeyman-Scott , Pete Farndon , and Martin Chambers...

 as an extra member to help fill out the sound of the band's live sound. Honeyman-Scott died in June '82, and Billy Bremner
Billy Bremner (musician)
William "Billy" Bremner is a guitarist best known for his work in the band Rockpile and on many of Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds' albums...

 took over initially; but McIntosh was auditioned and joined The Pretenders in September '82.

He toured extensively and recorded Learning to Crawl
Learning to Crawl
Learning to Crawl is the Pretenders' third album, released in 1984 after a two-year hiatus, during which time James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon both died of drug overdoses....

 and Get Close
Get Close
Get Close is the fourth album by rock group The Pretenders, released in 1986. Officially, the band for this album now consisted of Chrissie Hynde , Robbie McIntosh , T.M. Stevens and Blair Cunningham ; however, this line-up played on only five of the album's eleven tracks...

 with the band before leaving in September 1987.

The Paul McCartney Years

In 1988, McIntosh resumed doing studio work, doing sessions with Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

. McCartney was preparing a band for his 1989-90 World Tour, and with Chrissie Hynde
Chrissie Hynde
Christine Ellen "Chrissie" Hynde is an US musician best known as the leader of the rock/new wave band the Pretenders. She is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and has been the only constant member of the band throughout its history.-Early life and career:Hynde is the daughter of a part-time...

's endorsement, McIntosh was chosen as the lead guitarist in the new Paul McCartney Band. He appears on all McCartney's albums from 1989 through 1993, and also can be seen in the concert films Get Back
Get Back (film)
Get Back is a 1991 concert film starring Paul McCartney that documents The Paul McCartney World Tour of 1989–1990. The film was directed by Richard Lester, in a return to his Beatles-related work, and was released by Carolco Pictures and New Line Cinema, through the Seven Arts joint...

and Paul Is Live
Paul Is Live
Paul Is Live is a live album by Paul McCartney, released in 1993 during his New World Tour in support of the album Off the Ground. Its cover is often used as a counter-argument to the Paul is dead conspiracy theory.-Title and cover:...

.

Forms The Robbie McIntosh Band

McIntosh went back to doing sessions until about 1998; he started to realise a dream by putting together a band of his own. "I decided to pick some of my favourite players and mates for a band that I thought would give a particular sound and edge to my songs; so I grabbed Paul Beavis, Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk...

, Mark Feltham and Melvin Duffy and The Robbie McIntosh Band was born. We did some gigs and recorded Emotional Bends, the debut album."

Prior to this, at his friend Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

' insistence, McIntosh had recorded all his instrumental tunes. "This was a collection of compositions and arrangements that I just played for fun at home to amuse myself. Douglas insisted that I record them. This collection became the album Unsung, which was to be my second album, even though it was recorded before Emotional Bends."

The Robbie McIntosh Band released their second album, Wide Screen, in June 2001. "We did a bunch of gigs after the release of Wide Screen, but owing to a certain amount of domestic upheaval (a house fire in July 2001, had to move out for 7 months), the band activity kind of fizzled out. Mark still plays with Nine Below Zero who I go and sit in with now and then. Melvin plays with Los Pacaminos as well as working with Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...

, and I still do sessions and gigs with Paul and Pino so I still see a lot of the guys."

McIntosh has done session guitar work for many artists throughout his career including: Aynsley Lister
Aynsley Lister
Aynsley Lister is an English blues-rock guitarist/singer and songwriter.-Biography:Lister started playing guitar at 8 and played his first concert at 13. He had learned guitar by playing along to his father’s old 45s of Freddie King, John Mayall and Eric Clapton...

, Kevin Ayers
Kevin Ayers
Kevin Ayers is an English singer-songwriter and was a major influential force in the English psychedelic movement...

, Boyzone
Boyzone
Boyzone are an Irish boy band comprising Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham, Ronan Keating,Shane Lynch, and formerly Stephen Gately. Boyzone have 19 singles in the top 40 UK charts and 21 singles in the Ire charts. The group currently have 6 UK number one singles and 9 number one singles in Ireland with 12...

, Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...

, Diane Tell
Diane Tell
Diane Tell is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She first studied music at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal and the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Val-d'Or, then studied jazz guitar at Cégep de Saint-Laurent in Montreal...

, Eric Bibb
Eric Bibb
Eric Bibb is an American acoustic blues singer-songwriter. He is based in London and launched his career in Europe. Today he lives in Finland.-Biography:...

, George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

, Gordon Haskell
Gordon Haskell
Gordon Haskell is a Pop, Rock & Blues music vocalist, songwriter, and bassist. He first gained recognition as a member of the British band Les Fleur de Lys. He sang on one of the songs of King Crimson's second album, then played bass and sang on their third album...

, Heather Small
Heather Small
Heather Small is a British soul singer, best known for being the lead singer in the Manchester based band M People. Her debut solo album was Proud in 2000...

, Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...

, Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...

, John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

, Kirsty McColl, Luz Casal
Luz Casal
Luz Casal, born November 11, 1958 at Boimorto, is a Spanish pop singer. She grew up in neighbouring Asturias, took singing, piano and ballet classes, and moved to Madrid to pursue a career as a musician....

, Mike + The Mechanics, Nine Below Zero
Nine Below Zero
Nine Below Zero are an English blues band, who have a cult following throughout Europe, and were most popular in the period between 1980 and 1982.-Career:...

, Paul Carrack
Paul Carrack
Paul Carrack is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Carrack has been a member of several bands including Ace, Squeeze, Mike + The Mechanics, and Roxy Music, been a session and touring musician for several others including Nick Lowe, and has enjoyed success as a solo artist as well...

, Paul Young
Paul Young (singer and guitarist)
Paul Antony Young is an English pop musician. Formerly the frontman of the short-lived bands Kat Kool & The Kool Cats, Streetband and Q-Tips, his following solo success as a solo recording artist turned him into a 1980s teenage pop idol...

, Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

, Roger Daltrey
Roger Daltrey
Roger Harry Daltrey, CBE , is an English singer and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who. He has maintained a musical career as a solo artist and has also worked in the film industry, acting in a large number of films, theatre and television roles and also...

, Russell Watson
Russell Watson
Russell Watson is an English tenor who has released singles and albums of both operatic-style and pop songs. The self-styled "People's Tenor" had been singing since he was a child, and became known after performing at a working men's club...

, Mark Hollis, Talk Talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English musical group, active from 1981 to 1991. The group had a string of international hit singles including "Today", "Talk Talk", "It's My Life", "Such a Shame", "Dum Dum Girl", "Life's What You Make It" and "Living in Another World"....

, Tasmin Archer
Tasmin Archer
Tasmin Archer is an English pop singer. Her first album, Great Expectations, spawned the hit "Sleeping Satellite" which reached number one in the United Kingdom and Ireland.-Biography:...

, Tears for Fears
Tears for Fears
Tears for Fears are an English new wave band formed in the early 1980s by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith.Founded after the dissolution of their first band, the mod-influenced Graduate, they were initially associated with the New Wave synthesiser bands of the early 1980s but later branched out into...

, Eros Ramazzotti
Eros Ramazzotti
Eros Luciano Walter Ramazzotti , known simply as Eros Ramazzotti, is an Italian singer and songwriter. Ramazzotti is enormously popular in Italy, and is well known in most non-English-speaking European countries and in the Spanish-speaking world, as he has released most of his albums in both...

, Thea Gilmore
Thea Gilmore
Thea Eve Gilmore is a British female singer-songwriter. She began her career working in a recording studio, where she was discovered by her now long-time collaborator, producer and sometime co-songwriter Nigel Stonier, whom she married in October 2005.-Career:Gilmore was born in Oxford to Irish...

, Tina Arena
Tina Arena
Filippina Lydia "Tina" Arena is an Australian singer, songwriter and musical theatre actress. She has won several awards, most notably 6 ARIA Awards and in both 1996 and 2000 she received the World Music Award for the world's best selling Australian artist...

, Tori Amos
Tori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...

, Vin Garbutt
Vin Garbutt
Vin Garbutt , though second generation Irish, is an English folk singer and songwriter...

, and Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...

.

McIntosh toured with John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

 from 2006-2010, providing both rhythm and lead guitar, dobro, and mandolin. He performed all of Mayer's slide guitar work.

BluesClub

McIntosh is also currently a member of BluesClub, with William Topley
William Topley
William Topley may refer to:* William James Topley , Canadian photographer* William Topley , British geologist* William Whiteman Carlton Topley , British bacteriologist...

, Peter Hope-Evans, Alan Rogan, and long-time Mark Knopfler
Mark Knopfler
Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

 sidemen Guy Fletcher
Guy Fletcher
Guy Wilson Fletcher is an English multi-instrumentalist, best known for his position as the keyboardist in the British rock band Dire Straits from 1984 until the group's dissolution, and his involvement in nearly every part of Mark Knopfler's solo work to date.-Biography:Fletcher was born into a...

 and Danny Cummings
Danny Cummings
-Musical biography:The first Latin percussion instrument that Danny Cummings ever acquired was a second-hand conga he persuaded his parents to buy him for his 21st birthday. "I remember thinking that black fiberglass drum marked the beginning of a new era for me," says Cummings...

. BluesClub's debut album, Rollin' and Tumblin' Vol. 1 was released in September 2011. The album is a collection of blues covers.

With Talk Talk

  • It's My Life
    It's My Life (album)
    -Personnel:*Mark Hollis - vocals*Lee Harris - drums *Paul Webb - bass guitar*Tim Friese-Greene - keyboards*Ian Curnow - keyboards*Phil Ramocon - piano*Robbie McIntosh - guitar*Morris Pert - percussion*Henry Lowther - trumpet*James Marsh - cover art-Charts:...

    (1984)
  • The Colour of Spring
    The Colour of Spring
    -Personnel:* Mark Hollis - Organ, Keyboards, Guitar, Piano, Vocals, Melodica, Mellotron* Lee Harris - Percussion, Drums* Paul Webb - Bass, vocals, backing vocals* Tim Friese-Greene - producer, Piano, keyboards, Mellotron, Kurzweil synthesizer...

    (1986)
  • Spirit of Eden
    Spirit of Eden
    Spirit of Eden was the fourth album by the English band Talk Talk. The songs were written by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene, and performed by numerous musicians using a diverse combination of instruments. In 2008, Alan McGee of the Guardian wrote: "Spirit of Eden has not dated; it's remarkable...

    (1988)

With Paul McCartney

  • Flowers in the Dirt
    Flowers in the Dirt
    -Additional tracks:-Special Package :Following tracks are included on bonus disc.#"Message" - 0:28#* A environmental message from Paul to the Japanese fans.#"The Long and Winding Road" - 3:51...

    (1989)
  • Tripping the Live Fantastic
    Tripping the Live Fantastic
    Tripping the Live Fantastic is Paul McCartney's first official live album and his first release of concert material since Wings' 1976 Wings over America live package. It was released in 1990 as triple LP, double cassette and double CD. Tripping the Live Fantastic reached #16 in the UK and #26 in...

    (1990)
  • Unplugged
    Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)
    - Personnel :*Paul McCartney: Acoustic guitar, drums, vocals.*Linda McCartney: Piano, Indian harmonium, percussion, vocals.*Hamish Stuart: Acoustic bass guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals.*Robbie McIntosh: Acoustic guitars, piano, dobro, vocals....

    (1991)
  • Off the Ground
    Off the Ground
    Off the Ground is the ninth studio album by Paul McCartney, released in 1993. As his first studio album of the 1990s, it is also the follow-up to the acclaimed Flowers in the Dirt .-Recording and structure:...

    (1993)
  • Paul Is Live
    Paul Is Live
    Paul Is Live is a live album by Paul McCartney, released in 1993 during his New World Tour in support of the album Off the Ground. Its cover is often used as a counter-argument to the Paul is dead conspiracy theory.-Title and cover:...

    (1993)

With John Mayer

  • Where the Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles (2008)
  • Battle Studies
    Battle Studies
    Battle Studies is a book by Ardant du Picq, a colonel in the French Army who was killed in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War. The work was never completed, but Du Picq had written many chapters completely and left sufficient notes behind to complete the book.-Themes of the book:The theme of the book,...

    (2009)

External links

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