William Tonks

Bio

William Tonks is an Athens, Georgia–based musician with a long history of recording and touring. A guitarist and dobro player, as well as a singer-songwriter, Tonks has released twelve albums of original music with bands including Barbara Cue, The Workhorses of the Entertainment/Recreational Industry, MrJordanMrTonks, and Redneck Greece Delux. His most recent release, A Supernova Rainbow of Fun (2022), features country-rock songs for kids of all ages.

Born in New Jersey, Tonks moved with his family to Savannah, Georgia, in 1972, where he began seriously pursuing the guitar. Influenced by The Beatles, the Allman Brothers Band, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, he studied classical guitar—always making time to squeeze in a rock song at the end of each lesson.

Tonks studied English at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and relocated to Athens, Georgia, in the fall of 1985, drawn by its thriving music scene. Day jobs at the Taco Stand and the State Botanical Garden of Georgia afforded him the flexibility to tour, write, and record.

Since 2016, he has performed with Mike Mills and Robert McDuffie in support of Mills’s Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and Strings, a project that continues to evolve.