John Owen Williams (record producer)
John Owen Williams (born 1951) is an English A&R executive, record producer, photographer, manager, recording artist, and songwriter. In a career that has spanned over 35 years at major record labels, he has guided, A&R'd, mentored, and produced many artist careers including The Housemartins and The Proclaimers, as well as producing and signing Alison Moyet, Simple Minds, The Waterboys, Robert Plant, The Blue Nile, Status Quo, Cathy Dennis, Petula Clark, Ocean Colour Scene, J. J. Cale, Blancmange, Shriekback, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Jethro Tull, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Debbie Harry and Luciana. Early life Williams was born in Wolverhampton, and attended Woodfield Avenue School, Penn, West Midlands. He learned guitar as a teenager and played in school bands at Bromsgrove School. At the University of Western Ontario, he played the folk and coffee bar circuit as a singer-songwriter, and wrote for the University Gazette and The Trouser Press as a rock critic. Career Returning to the UK he worked for Polydor in record promotion in 1974 with The Who, The Rubettes, Slade, The Osmonds and Barclay James Harvest, before moving to Island where he promoted Bob Marley and The Wailers, and was label manager for Shelter Records who housed artists such