Richard Michael Dawson (born 1981)^[1] is an English progressive folk singer-songwriter from Newcastle upon Tyne.^[2] His 2014 album Nothing Important was released by Weird World and was met with critical acclaim.^[3][4][5] His 2017 album Peasant received similar acclaim, and was chosen by The Quietus as their album of the year.^[6] In 2019, he released the album 2020, again to critical acclaim.^[7][8] Henki, a collaborative album made with the Finnish band Circle, was released in 2021,^[9] followed by another solo effort, The Ruby Cord, in 2022.

Dawson grew up in Newcastle and became interested in singing as a child, attempting to emulate American singers such as Faith No More's Mike Patton.^[10] He worked in record stores for 10 years before starting a professional music career. He bought an inexpensive acoustic guitar^[3] but accidentally broke it. After the guitar was repaired, he found it had a unique sound and he has used it as his main instrument.^[2]

Dawson's music has been described as a deconstruction of folk music, done in an English style, similar to what American Captain Beefheart did with blues music.^[2][5] Dawson himself cites Qawwali,^[10] a form of Sufi devotional music, Kenyan folk guitarist Henry Makobi^[2] and folk musician Mike Waterson^[11] as influences on his work. The albums The Glass Trunk (2013) and Nothing Important (2014) feature collaborations with harpist Rhodri Davies, who Dawson describes as "somewhat of a kindred spirit".^[10][11] Dawson and Davies released a collaborative album, Dawson-Davies: Hen Ogledd,^[12] in 2013 and Dawson has also released solo material pseudonymously under the name "Eyeballs". Dawson has also performed in the groups Hot Fog with Mike Vest (Bong)^{[citation needed]}, Moon with Ben Jones and Sarah Sullivan (Jazzfinger), and played a handful of shows on guitar with Khunnt.^[11]

Since Nothing Important, Dawson has played the guitar through a Fender and an Orange amplifier in series.^[10] He also used synthesized sounds from an iOS application, ThumbJam, and played saxophone despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of the instrument.^[10]

Lyrically, Dawson's material deals with dark subjects such as death. For The Glass Trunk, he searched a database in the Tyne and Wear archives for "death" and took inspiration from old news stories involving murder and bodily harm.^[3][13] The track "The Vile Stuff" from Nothing Important describes a continuous narrative of events, including one where Dawson pierced his hand with a screwdriver attempting to crack a coconut shell while on a school trip.^[5]