Ian is folky (often), poppy (sometimes), irreverant (mostly) and trying to say, in music, something about things going on today. Think 'Nick Drake' only far less depressing.

A short profile

By day, Ian Abbott is a mild-mannered college lecturer: yet at night, he becomes mild-mannered Ian abbott; singer/songwriter and defender of truth, justice and the permanent way. No stranger to success (or Matalan), one of Ian's songs, "From an English Hill" reached the finals of the 2006 UK songwriting contest, and his latest song, "The Tail-Gunner's Tale" has just reached the finals of a BBC radio competition. He's also appeared on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire's 'Sounds' programme with Vic Minett, generally chuckling and playing a few tracks live. Look out for Ian in the open-mic slots and acoustic nights of Coventry: His music has been described as anything from 'gentle, acoustic pop' to 'Contemporary Folk' to 'not-at-all Folky', so it really is up to you to come up with your own labelling. Whatever it is, they are songs which try to say something about the people and places that he knows: not in Australia or America or in the 1800's, but right here and right now. As to where he's heading, Ian's ambition is to inaugurate a prolonged period of World peace and to have his best-known songs played in lifts (on the pan-pipes).