Born in Manchester in 1961 I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and various other crooners and swing bands. At age 11 I started to play the violin, playing in the school orchestra and latterly the Manchester Youth Orchestra, the highlight of my fiddle playing career was a week long tour of Belgium with the orchestra with the Manchester Mass, a lesser known work written to commemorate the Queens Silver Jubilee. I first picked up a guitar when I was at age 15, by this time I was into Sabbath, Zeppelin, Floyd, Kiss etc. I was off school with flu and my brother had a cheap spanish guitar and tutorial lying around and so to kill the boredom I decided to teach myself to play, the rest as they say is history. At age 17 me and my mate Ian (latterly Redhot Red of Rox fame) started jamming together and put a band together called Venom (not the Newcastle satanic Rock band) which was a ram shackle fusion of heavy metal, new wave and Roxy Music, I played bass in this 4 piece and after several changes in line up and well and truly a heavy metal band I decided it wasn't for me and joined a local blues outfit Crystal Climax Blues Band, continuing on the bass, by this time I was married, that didn't last long, and I left the band after about a year. I have never played with a band since but I have on and off played some solo sets at folk nights, playing some Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan stuff etc. To cut a long storry short, all these different musical influences have shaped my song writing and I continue study blues music and I am continually learning and growing as a song writer and performer, at the age I am I am still work in progress, but aren't we all! I have two more songs to complete which are Friday Night When I get Paid and Weetabix Bliues and then my Album 'Ramblings from a Back Street' will be finished and available for purchase either as an entire album or as single tracks. The proceeds will go entirely to two UK charities that are dear to me, NOrth Wst Heart and Lung Centre in Manachester because they saved my life and Reubens retreat, a charity set up to provide as supportive environment for families of terminally ill children, but I will tell you more about that in due course.