Gillian Mary Smyth[2] (1 June 1933 – 22 August 2016) was an English musician best known for co-founding the psychedelic rock group Gong with her partner Daevid Allen in 1967.

After a brief spell teaching at the Sorbonne (Paris) (where she became bilingual), she began doing performance poetry with well-known English jazz-rock group Soft Machine, founded by her partner and long-time collaborator, Daevid Allen, in 1968.

[4] She co-founded Gong with Allen, an outfit that included musicians such as Steve Hillage, Pierre Moerlen and Didier Malherbe.

In her spoken-word poetry, especially within Gong's "Radio Gnome Invisible" Trilogy, she portrays a prostitute, a cat, a mother, a witch, and an old woman, and she was known for wearing costumes for these personas on stage.

[citation needed] Mother Gong toured internationally in 1979-81 and 1989–91, either headlining or supporting such artists as Bob Dylan and Big Brother and the Holding Company.