I recorded a duet with Lonnie Donegan in the summer of ‘76 for Granada Reports…sadly the tape has been wiped - which I like to think was due to saving money by re-using the tapes than as a comment on the performance. It was a musical highlight for me. What Lonnie thought is  not known. But talking of skiffle heroes, I dd form a friendship and regular playing partnership with 1950s chart topping washboard player, John Pilgrim. (Check out Wally Whyton and The Vipers)

 

There are many names to drop, which I will get round to as the stories unfold, so do take a look at my Stories page.

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At 34, I left Granada TV to become Mike Harding’s Tour Manager. Part of our travelling troupe was a fabulous trio of musicians: Hedgehog Pie, made up of Dave Burland, Mick Doonan and Jed Grimes. You know the old saying: what happens on tour…In early 1979, Mike went into Strawberry Studios in Stockport to record a non-comedy album of "serious' songs that he had been hatching for quite a while. I played on a couple of tracks and took photos for the artwork. However, having been transferred to CD, my parts are inaudible! 'So what!' I hear you cry, it's Mike you want to hear…and of course, you're right!

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I then resumed my television career at Thames TV, where I stayed until the summer of 1984. I was invited back to Granada, then followed a peripatetic career taking me to Channel 4, and Channel 5. Throughout, I always kept playing in various skiffle and folk groupings but this period also saw me start venturing into playing jazz as well as true R ‘n’ B - shorthand for Rhythm & Blues - the style and sound as immortalised and recorded by the Atlantic, Stax & Volt record labels.

 

These endeavours saw me putting together bands like Rebels Without Applause, in four different incarnations. Also Left Hand Jive, Acoustic Bridge, String Driven Swing and Cocktail Swing.

 

In among all of this I had the great pleasure and delight to work with fantastic jazz singer Gill Manly who has given me some of the highlights of my music-making life. In the ‘90s, I formed a jump Jive/Swing band playing anything from Blues Brothers repertoire to Cab Calloway. We played many private, well-paid functions including TV Industry Award Shows in which I led a band to play the music as the next winner walked from table to stage to podium. Then, after their speech, played them off again. That was fun…and we featured some stellar players including Hank Wangford’s outstandingly emotional female singer, Melanie Harrold aka Irma Cetus and Mark King’s Level 42 tenor sax player, Sean Freeman.

 

More recently, until the pandemic closed much of the music scene, I was accompanist, on mandola - not a typical jazz instrument! - along with acoustic guitarist Thomas Coffey, to the Delightful Diva around the London Jazz Scene: the fabulous Gill Manly. We launched our 2016 CD at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho to much acclaim and decent sales. This trio also scored a triumphant night at another classic Soho Jazz venue: Pizza Express in Wardour Street where we packed out the venue and scored a memorable, even unforgettable, 'live’ night out.

 

Currently, I enjoy working with folkie/soft-rock trio, Rambling Valentines and we play relatively contemporary, acoustic covers of songs by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny, Laura Marling, Led Zeppelin, Gillian Welch, KT Tunstall, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, Natalie Merchant…and so on…

 

Cocktail Swing is a vocal and violin led trio picking songs and tunes from the Gypsy Jazz repertoire as well as smooth, small group swing/jazz tunes and songs.

 

String Driven Swing is a fabulous hybrid. The four of us met at a Bluegrass Music Camp in the Cotswolds (Sore Fingers Summer School), although none of us really plays bluegrass, but we love acoustic music, and good bluegrass players have buckets of technique to share. Of which we have partaken freely and extensively. Our repertoire comes from Django Rheinhardt, Benny Goodman, David Grisman and the great American songbook…essentially small group swing.

 

Do take a look at the Bands page to find out more.

 

The  only available ukulele instruction book in the Wembley Music Salon, was full of late 19th and early 20th century songs, (I was into rock ‘n’ Roll and skiffle) but that didn't put me off…the magic of chords beguiled me. As it does to this day. Aged 15, I bought a guitar from a general store that advertised in the Daily Mirror. It arrived with a cracked back so my parents urged me to send it back and get it replaced. But no! Once it was in my hands, that was where it would stay. And it did. Happily, uke chords transferred to guitar albeit under a different name. A ‘C’ chord shape on a uke became a ‘G’ chord on a guitar. All I had to do now was learn to use the 2 low guitar strings as well.

 

I formed my first group The Bootles when I was 20. It was a trio, then a quartet of legend in certain peace movement and left wing circles. We played many, many gigs a few of which were paid. We played all over Greater London and as far afield as Merseyside and South Wales. But that didn’t earn me a living. The family ambition was to get a job as a clerk because it was good secure employment. Even better was to get a clerk’s job in a bank, which I did. But the music continued. At 21, My wife bought me a 12-string guitar which transformed my entire musical life. I devoted my practice time to emulating Leadbelly and Pete Seeger. I also started performing solo and writing songs. Well…if Dylan could do it and John & Paul, then so could I…and so could thousands upon thousands of others.

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The phone rang regularly offering me gigs and most weekends saw me out playing somewhere or another. But the folk scene really took off for me when, at 27, I joined up with two of the Scottish folk revival’s luminaries, Gordon McCulloch and Bobby Campbell in their trio, The Exiles.

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In addition to British folk clubs, we were booked extensively across Germany and made four tours between 1972 and ’74. Perhaps one of the many highlights, was playing support to Gallagher & Lyle on a mini tour of the Central Belt of Scotland. The M.C. for that tour was the legendary Danny Kyle.

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I also made one solo trip to Germany to perform at various medium sized festivals in the summer of ’73 climaxing in a solo performance at an Open Air Concert at midnight in Berlin’s Alexander Platz before 25,000 people. I was too young to be nervous.

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Following that, I still had to get a proper job and was recruited to join Granada TV as a reporter, then a presenter. Even so, I managed to sing and play occasionally: on a kids’ programme: Song Book with the joyous Kathy Jones and Leo Dove. The show was produced by Muriel Young and her wonderful colleague and friend Sally Pethybridge. Mu came to fame as a continuity announcer initially, then as presenter of Pussy Cat Willum alongside skiffle star (The Vipers) Wally Whyton. Kathy was moonlighting from her front line role in Coronation Street. There is footage of my performances on the Archive page.