09/08/15
Started by trying to play like Buddy Holly and still trying!. Currently playing with Ragtag, on an LAG 4 Seasons guitar with occasional harmonica and vocals
I bought my first proper guitar just before joining the RAF in 1963, before that I had a ukelele type toy plastic guitar from 11 (Kelvin eat your heart out!) and an orange box wood guitar at 14 which had a warped neck and was impossible to tune!. I also sang with various church choirs quite a lot, they seemed to like my voice before it broke. Learned to play harmonica in the back of coaches travelling with the ATC before leaving school.
Whilst training at RAF Halton I got into a Merseybeat style band playing early Stones, Beatles and Chuck Berry numbers (it was the Sixties, I was there!) as well as being a bass drummer with the apprentice pipe band I nearly had my RAF career cut short by announcing an illegal gig at the camp youth club Fights broke out with the local village lads and a great time was had by all! The band was called 'Hobsons Q Feel (technical term/dont ask!) We actually played four paid gigs at a dance hall in Aylesbury over Courts furniture shop
By now I had bought a Hofner cherry red semi-acoustic electric and got posted to Norfolk, continuing to improve my styles and listening to as much different music as possible Later I acquired a Framus acoustic 12 string and played for pocket money with another guy on accordion in a Kings Lynn pub I also got into jazz somewhat playing with an Australian pianist (Lash Jones, where are you?)
After being posted to Malta in the late 60s I discovered folk music via Dylan and Donovan and raided the islands record shops for Dubliners/Tom Paxton/Dylan/Peter Paul and Mary LPs and played in camp folk clubs and bars Singing Irish songs in a Maltese bar was quite surreal! I also learned to play finger style with picks
Along the way I acquired a British Banjo mandolin from my great-aunt, who was involved in the folk dance revival after World War 1, a German mandolin, a Bouzouki, a Turkish Jumbusch, a fife, various whistles and an Eko 12 string
After returning to England, this time near Cambridge I again played in the camp folk club, Round this time I left the RAF and whilst looking for work got four solo gigs at a pub in Comberton
Ended up in Birmingham doing a Librarianship degree, became a Christian and played in a Gospel Folk outfit called Whitestone We were once second on the bill under Parchment at St. Martins in the Bull Ring, they were a Liverpool gospel outfit nationally popular in the 70s Our drummer eventually left to roadie for the Jam, I failed my first year uni exams, end of the band!
I then concentrated on my life of crime as an academic librarian, playing sporadically at church/charity folk nights for about 25 years After retiring I went along to to a new folk club at the Davenport Arms, and met Dave Whitehead, Kelvin Leatham, Glynne Davies and others Dave asked me to join his band, Kellyoddy for a while, but Glynne invited me to his club at the Woodford British Legion, and the rest , as they say, is history!
Biggest Musical Regret Not going to a Jimi Hendrix gig in Norfolk in the Sixties!
Influences: Buddy Holly, Early 50s Rock and Roll/ 60s Stones, Beatles,Chuck Berry, Soul /Jazz standards/English and Irish Folk/American Folk/American Blues/Johnny Cash/English and American 70s Rock/Electric Folk, Steeleye Span, Albion band etc.
