William "Billy" Connolly, CBE, (born 24 November 1942) is a Glaswegian comedian, musician, presenter, and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin (The Big One). The nickname was first used during Connolly's adolescent years to differentiate between himself and his father, William Connolly, Sr. Billy was born at 65 Dover Street in Glasgow, Scotland, to Mary and William Connolly, the son of an Irish immigrant. In 1946, with their son barely four years old, Connolly's parents divorced. He and his sister, Florence ("Flo"), would be looked after by two aunts, Margaret and Mona, his father's sisters.

Connolly was brought up in the Anderston, and later Partick, districts of Glasgow. He attended St. Peter's Primary School in Glasgow and St. Gerard's Secondary School in Govan. At the age of 12, he decided he wanted to become a comedian but felt he didn't fit the mold; he felt he needed to become more "windswept and interesting". Instead, at the age of 15, he left school and became a welder in a Glasgow shipyard. Around the same time he joined the Territorial Army's Parachute Regiment. At the medical, the doctor noted to him, "you're not very big downstairs, are you?" to which Connolly replied, "I thought we were only going to fight them."

Career

Folk music

In 1965, together with Tam Harvey, Connolly started a group called the Humblebums. At their first gig, Connolly reportedly introduced them both to the audience by saying, "My name's Billy Connolly, and I'm humble. This is Tam Harvey, he's a bum." The band would later include Gerry Rafferty. Connolly sang, played banjo and guitar, and entertained the audience with his humorous introductions to the songs.

In his World Tour of Scotland, Connolly revealed that at a trailer show during the Edinburgh Festival, the Humblebums took to the stage just before the late Yehudi Menuhin.

The trio broke up in 1971, at which point Connolly went solo. His first solo album in 1972, Billy Connolly Live! on Transatlantic Records, features Connolly as a singer, songwriter, and musician.

His early albums were a mixture of comedy performances with comedic and serious musical interludes. Among his best known musical performances were "The Welly Boot Song", a comical ode to the working class which became his theme song for several years; "In the Brownies", a parody of the Village People classics "Y.M.C.A." and "In the Navy" (for which Connolly filmed a music video); "Two Little Boys in Blue", a tongue-in-cheek indictment of police brutality done to the tune of Rolf Harris' "Two Little Boys"; and the ballad "I Wish I Was in Glasgow" which Connolly would later perform on a guest appearance on the 1990s American sitcom Pearl (which starred Rhea Perlman). He also performed the occasional Humblebums-era song such as "Oh, No!" as well as straightforward covers such as a version of Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" which was included on his Riotous Assembly album.

In November 1975, his spoof of the Tammy Wynette song "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" had a one-week spell as the UK's No. 1 single. Wynette's original was about parents spelling out words of an impending marital split to avoid traumatizing their young child. Connolly's version of the song, on the other hand, played off of the fact that many dog owners use the same tactic when they do not wish their pet to become upset about an impending trip to the vet. His song is about a couple whose marriage is ruined by a bad vet visit (spelling out "W-O-R-M" or "Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E", for example.)

His song "No Chance" was a parody of J.J. Barrie's "No Charge".

In 1985 he sang the theme song to Supergran, which was released as a single and in 1996 he performed a cover of Ralph McTell's In The Dreamtime as the theme to his World Tour of Australia. By the late 1980s, Connolly had all but dropped the music from his act, though he still records the occasional musical performance. In 1998 he covered The Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" on the George Martin tribute, In My Life. Most recently, he sang a song during the film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Connolly is among the artists featured on Banjoman, a tribute to American folk musician Derroll Adams, released in 2002. He plays one song, "The Rock".

Stand-up comedy

However, it is as a stand-up comedian that Connolly is best known. His observational comedy is idiosyncratic and often off-the-cuff. He talks about himself, who he is, where he's been, what he thinks and how he reacts to the world around him. He has outraged audiences, critics and, of course, the media with his free use of the word "fuck". He has used masturbation, blasphemy, defecation, flatulence, sex, his father's illness and his aunts' cruelty to entertain. By exploring these subjects with humour, Connolly has done much to strip away the taboos surrounding them. Yet he does not tell jokes in the conventional way. At the end of a concert the audience can be convulsed with laughter, though few can remember a specific "funny" line.

One of Connollys most famous comedy routines is The Crucifixion (Part I, Part II here), a 1973 live recording produced by Nat Joseph in which he likened Christ's Last Supper to a drunken night out in Glasgow. The recording was banned by many radio stations at the time. Around this same time, a joke told during a television talk show appearance (about a murderer and his bike) became a sensation that, reportedly, people still remember three decades after the appearance.