Gather Me the Summertime

I was listening to Gather, one of my favourite songs by Di recently and I felt the mix was a bit of a barrier to entry. I would have liked to have mixed it differently. Thanks to a couple of AI tools I was able to extract several individual tracks from the original mix – violin, voice and guitar. I remixed them and added a few subtle touches of other strings. I hope the original musicians and producer will forgive me! It’s a lovely sad song about departing summers but also the joy she took in nature.

Hermit Crab – poems by Di Williams

I’d had no contact from anyone about this site for years then suddenly I got a message from Phil Thrift, a musician living in Berlin. He knew Di in mid-80’s Manchester and had held on to a copy of a little book of poetry she’d written called Hermit Crab. Phil kindly sent me a PDF of the booklet. You can download Hermit Crab here.

Here are the title page, Di’s introduction, and the first two poems.

Title page of booklet Hermit Crab, poems by Di Williams, with two line drawings of hermit crabs.

A poem about Di

This is from a Scottish friend, based in China, who learned about Di from this site.

Di Williams, Take Route

My good friend in Manchester days
Your transport your own two feet
Di Williams, now you’re deid,
I could greet

Playing your fiddle and penny whistle
A word here and a laugh there
Di playing the folk clubs wi’ me
It’s all here on this old cassette

I’m moving once again, take note
My good friend I’ll be at your gig
In heaven when I arrive at last,
Supporting John Cooper Clark
And playing my 12-string guitar.

Kenneth McPhee

We have a photo

On Facebook a friend found Luke Walker, who had created a page about Di’s funeral.

He provided this photo from the page.

Photo of Di Williams

We’re grateful to Luke and hope some others can come forward with photos and memories.