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...My Dad was a celebrated songwriter, who wrote many great songs ...(I will talk about him later)... so it was probably fate really that I should fall into some musical category or the other in my life. He bought me an accordion for my 4th Christmas. It was bigger than me. (I wish I had a photo)...I could only nail a few chords and, never mastered the left-hand bass buttons so I used to get a friend to pull the bellows in and out while I played chords on the piano side...that was fun but I'm sure it looked weird... Four years later he asked me late one night coming up to Christmas 1964, if I would like a guitar. I still have that guitar. I didn't get too far on it ...just a few chords..and decided to take piano lessons instead. After 2 years my teacher told my folks that I was doing really well and that in his opinion I was future "concert pianist" material. But classical music generally, even though I have my favourite pieces...didn't do it for me.
I started playing keyboards professionally when I was 16 just after I ran out of school (literally...) and I was hanging out at gigs in nightclubs and late night gig venues even though I was still young and when all my school friends were still stuck into books. My first gig was playing in a Country music trio with two guys, a bass player and a drummer who used to deliver milk at 6am in the morning for a local dairy and gigged at the weekends. When I was 17, I joined up as keyboard player with a Folk/Rock outfit called Keltic Wine (?) and played around Ireland for 2 years but decided to start playing guitar seriously I decided to take up the guitar again as the guitarist in the band I was playing in at the time was attracting all the attention so I ditched my Tiger Eko single manual organ and bought my first guitar...a Hofner solid bodied that I used to play through an small 5 watt amp called a Companion. It was hung up on a nail on the garage wall to make it sound louder. Wow! 5 Watts of pure power! After that band broke up I decided to start playing guitar I met Eric Bell in Dublin around 1976 after he has left Lizzy and was doing some guest guitar slots with him in Dublin's now, sadly gone, Baggot Inn. I moved to London in 1979 to see what was going on over there...and got into the scene there pretty quickly having got a gig in a West End club through another old acquaintance of mine, the great Dublin jazz guitarist Louis Stewart. That was handy,... knowing Louis, because as he was playing with Ronnie Scott's Quintet at the time and I used to get into Ronnie's club in Frith Street in Soho free of charge and got to see many great jazz folk from the US and around the world. Wow!...that was a buzz! Ronnie's group, Buddy Rich bigband. Louis Bellson, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson...I could go on and on .And I got to play with a lot of English jazz musicians from just going in there and meeting people. Stan Tracey, Don Weller, Dudu Pukwana and host of other great English players in a cool little jazz club in the King's Road called the 606 Club, which is still in operation although they have moved to bigger premises....I played a lot of West End shows which was great for not only reading but did a lot for the nerves and built a lot of confidence. I worked with Sally oldfield and toured Germany with her. I was guitarist / Fender Rhodes player with a Blues band called Firing Squad which had Tom Compton on drums. (Alvin Lee / Johnny Winter) Fuzzy Samuels (The Equals / Alvin Lee) Mick Taylor (Stones),and a very old friend of mine Keith Christmas. Keith quit playing for quit a while but is back in full form now. I also had the pleasure of playing with Mitch Mitchell (RIP) and Dave Rowberry (RIP) from The Animals, in the Caernarvon Castle in Camden Town, London for a few months in the mid 80's....and with the late (gentleman of gentlemen) Mr. Noel Redding on many occasions in Clnakilty in Southern Ireland. Hazel O'Connor (Breaking Glass?), Sinead O'Connor and Van Morrison....So, Basiically I've come from a pure Folk, Blues backgournd right on through hard Rock...theatre work and no to modern Jazz and all the way back again to the BLues and Gospel which is what I really get my kicks out of....! But I like anything that's really done well....I suppose. At present I am doing a lot producing in Ireland and France, where I now live. I produced an album for Honor Heffernan, (Irish singer) in a friend's studio in Montpellier near where I live. Check her out: www.honorheffernan.com
I also am working with an old friend from London, Herman Martin who has written a lot of cartoon music for shows that have been distributed around the world...and who's latest project is a "Jazzoid" album. I wlll add more about Herman later on...At present I am working on a project with Jimmy MacCarthy, Ireland's most prolific and celebrated songwriter.....Jimmyu will have his site up online very soon...DF.