John Wilkinson Music
Welcome to the website of John Wilkinson. Lead vocalist with Mama (Genesis tribute band) Ellesmere, The Swan Chorus, Moonshot and Random Option
Biography
John was introduced to music at a very early age. Growing up with four brothers who loved everything from The Beatles to The Sex Pistols and much more besides.
His first musical memory was hearing The Beatles ‘We Can Work It Out’ when he was a child. He absorbed artists like The Who, Deep Purple, Mike Oldfield, and Elton John before he heard a song by a band that completely changed his life. The song was ‘Entangled’ by Genesis. He became a fan at once and spent his teenage years locked in his bedroom listening to all their albums.
At first John had no thoughts of being a singer. He wanted to be a guitarist and learned to play a few simple chords and solos. He attended music college when he was 18 but soon realised he wasn’t ever going to be more than an average guitarist.
He did play for a while in a couple of local bands performing original songs, but in common with a lot of such bands, never made an impression. One of these bands called Bureau Surreal did give him the chance to sing on one song he co-wrote. He found that people did seem to like his voice. He still never thought of singing as his main purpose.
John was married at 22 and music took a backseat for many years until the marriage ended in 1992. John then saw an advert in the local paper that wanted a singer for a covers band, so with nothing else on the horizon decided after much thought to apply. To his astonishment he got the job and was soon singing in pubs and clubs around Liverpool. People often compared his voice to Phil Collins although John wasn’t especially trying to sound like Phil.
After a few years John founded the Phil Collins tribute band Face Value, which were very successful for ten years. When that band ran its course John formed a Genesis tribute band Mama, who he still tours and performs with today.
His first introduction to recording came with Colin McKay and David Knowles in The Swan Chorus. He was contacted by Colin initially and was sent some demos of their first album. John immediately fell in love with the songs but like the song says, his Imposter Syndrome kicked in and he nearly backed out of the project. Colin and David gave him the encouragement he needed and he finished the album which was released to great reviews.
His next project came about through Mama’s bassist David K Jones’s friendship with Prog rock artist Tim Bowness. Tim released an album called Lost In The Ghostlight, which tells the story of a fictional band, Moonshot. Tim had the idea to ask Mama to re-record some of these songs in the style of Genesis as if they were actually released by Moonshot. The resulting album (a greatest hits type album) was called Worlds Of Yesterday and again gathered great reviews. Tim also asked if Mama could write an original song for the album, giving them the title of Before That Before. It fell to John and David to write the song and gave John his first taste of songwriting.
Around the time of that album’s release, John was contacted by Roberto Vitelli, leader and multi instrumentalist of the Italian Prog band Elesmere who was searching for a vocalist to sing on his fourth album. John (by this time more sure of his abilities) agreed and started work on the album. Roberto began sending him songs over the internet and John recorded vocals in his home studio. The album contained such Prog rock stars as John Hackett, Clive Nolan, Tomas Bodin, and David Jackson. The album was released to great critical acclaim and Roberto asked John to join the band permanently, which he accepted. Work on the fifth album has already started.
Again more requests to sing with different people soon followed. The International Prog band The Samurai Of Prog asked John to sing with them and he appears on several albums by them. That band use many different vocalists on one album and John was thrilled to be a part of the project.
An American keyboardist Bill Bressler contacted John with the view to him singing on his album A Second Past which will be released shortly. John also did some backing vocals for his friend David K Jones solo album and is currently working with David on some new songs with Mama (Genesis tribute band).
John was again the main vocalist on the second Swan Chorus album released in 2023. Again this was well received.
In 2022 John decided he would have a go at writing some songs himself with a view to possibly recording them. At that point he wasn’t sure if they were good enough to consider releasing them, but after a lot of encouragement from Colin McKay and David K Jones, he decided to go ahead. Work started at his home studio in early 2022 and finished in late 2023. John worked exclusively with Colin McKay on the album which he later titled Imposter Syndrome.
An early version of the song Stranded was sent to Shaun Geraghty at Progzilla Radio, who was a big fan of both The Swan Chorus and Moonshot, for his opinion of the song. To John’s amazement Shaun played the song on his show and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. This encouraged John to carry on making the album.
John was contacted by an old promoter from his Face Value days, Steve Guard, about possible shows for Mama. Steve then asked about the album John was working on and John sent him some finished mixes. To John’s delight, Steve wanted to release the album on his own record label.
John continues to sing with Mama as he will always be a Genesis fan and will of course be releasing more music in the future.