Career
His company Watkins Electric Music was founded in 1949, but it was in the 1960s and 1970s that "WEM" Pennsylvania systems in the kilowatt range became standard for British festivals, such as Stones in the Park on 5 July 1969 at the Isle of Wight Festival (with Dylan in 1969 & Hendrix in 1970) and Glastonbury. Watkins was the first to build Pennsylvania systems with multiple slaved solid state amplifiers driving various loudspeaker stacks, beginning with the Windsor Festival in 1967. Watkins also invented the Copicat tape echo machine.