Robbie McIntosh (born 25 October 1957) is an English guitarist. McIntosh is best known as a session guitarist and member of The Pretenders from 1982 until 1987. In 1988 he began doing session guitar work for Paul McCartney joining his band full-time until early 1994. He continues to play sessions and has performed both with his own band and as a sideman with John Mayer.
McIntosh was born in Sutton, Surrey, and started playing the guitar at the age of ten, picking out things from any records listened to at the time. His father owned records by jazz artists such as Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong and his mother played piano. His two older sisters introduced him to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Spencer Davis Group and Jimi Hendrix. At age 13, he started taking classical guitar lessons from a teacher called Michael Lewin, who later became a professor and head of the Guitar department at the Royal Academy of Music[1] and passed his grade eight music exams.
Career
70% Proof and The Foster Brothers
McIntosh's first band was called 70% Proof. They played original material and also covers by others including Humble Pie, The Who, Free and Stevie Wonder. The other band members Paul Eager, Russell Ayles and Graham Mincher had all left school and he used to rehearse on Sunday afternoons with them at the local works canteen. McIntosh took A-levels at school but was not able to study biology at university as he had hoped. This lead him to join Raynes Park band The Foster Brothers. He toured and recorded with this band throughout 1977 before the band folded in 1978.
Filthy McNasty and Night
McIntosh worked for about six months as a lorry driver for a builder's supply company. Unexpectedly he received a phone call from Chris Thompson who at the time was the singer in Manfred Mann's Earth Band and had a casual band called Filthy McNasty who played the London Club Circuit and he employed McIntosh as lead guitarist. In November 1978 the band travelled to Los Angeles to record with Richard Perry 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.
Chris Thompson and the Islands and Dean Martin's Dog
Night disbanded during 1980 but Thompson and McIntosh stayed together and formed Chris Thompson and the Islands with Malcolm Foster, Paul "Wix" Wickens who later joined McIntosh in Paul McCartney's band in 1989 and Mick Clews. He left at the end of 1981. McIntosh formed a jam band to play the local pub circuit called "Dean Martin's Dog" along with Malcolm Foster, Mick Clews, Jez Wire, Rupert Black and Mike Dudley. The band won Time Out magazine "band name of the year".
The Pretenders
During 1977 and 1978, McIntosh had become friends with James Honeyman-Scott of The Pretenders, who contacted McIntosh in 1982 with a view to his joining The Pretenders to fill out the band's live sound. Honeyman-Scott died in June 1982 and was replaced by Billy Bremner. During the Christmas period the same year, McIntosh joined The Pretenders.[2] He toured extensively with the band and was also credited on the albums Learning to Crawl (1984) and Get Close (1986), before leaving in September 1987.
Roger Daltrey
In 1985, McIntosh became the main guitarist on Roger Daltrey's sixth solo album Under a Raging Moon, a tribute to The Who's former drummer Keith Moon who had died in 1978. The album was Daltrey's best charting success in the US and McIntosh was featured on the music video for "Let Me Down Easy" aside Daltrey opposite to Bryan Adams also playing guitar.
He left K.M.O. in 1988, taking on session work and became the lead guitarist for Paul McCartney's band, touring and playing on all McCartney's albums from 1989 to 1993. He can be seen in the concert films Get Back and Paul Is Live.
The Robbie McIntosh Band
After leaving McCartney's band he realised his long-time ambition to have the time to form his own band, and is quoted as saying: "I decided to pick some of my favourite players for a band that I thought would give a particular sound and edge to my songs. So I grabbed Paul Beavis, Pino Palladino, Mark Feltham and Melvin Duffy to form The Robbie McIntosh Band in 1998. We did some gigs and recorded Emotional Bends as a debut album.” Earlier instrumentals became the basis of a second album Unsung inspired by Douglas Adams.
Norah Jones and John Mayer
In 2004 McIntosh joined Norah Jones' touring band staying in the band a year for the "Feels Like Home" world tour playing slide, acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin and backing vocals. He toured with John Mayer from 2006 to 2010 providing rhythm and lead guitar, dobro and mandolin. He performed all slide guitar parts during that period as well.
Winter Mountain, sessions and Turn Up for the Books
In 2012 McIntosh played acoustic and electric guitar on multiple songs from Winter Mountain's self-titled debut album, including the band's debut single "Shed a little light" on which he played slide guitar. McIntosh played live with Sinéad O'Connor, Tom Jones, Bluesclub and Los Pacaminos. He released his fifth album Turn Up for the Books in September 2013. This album has contributions by Paul Beavis, Stephen Darrell Smith, Mark Feltham, Pino Palladino, Steven Wilson, Jess Upton and Peter Hope-Evans.
Seaworld and Fortuneswell
In May 2017 he once again joined John Mayer on stage to perform the song "Daughters in London". In June 2021 Robbie released another album of songs called Seaworld, featuring Stephen Darrell Smith on keyboards, Paul Beavis on drums, Steve Wilson on bass, Jody Linscott on percussion and Peter Hope Evans on harmonica. McIntosh and Smith shared production credits and his former McCartney bandmate Paul “Wix” Wickens mastered the album. In December 2021 he released the album Fortuneswell, solely as a download from Bandcamp. All profits from this went to the Fortuneswell Cancer Trust.
Held By Trees
During the first COVID-19 lockdown, McIntosh was invited by musician David Joseph to contribute to his Talk Talk inspired instrumental post-rock project called Held By Trees. The project, at that point, involved other Talk Talk associates, Martin Ditcham (percussion), Lawrence Pendrous (piano), Andy Panayi (woodwinds) and Simon Edwards (bass).[3] The group released their first album, Solace, in 2022.[4] This was followed by live shows which featured bassist James Grant (replacing Edwards) and drummer Paul Beavis.[5]
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