Born in the East End of London….it was a humble beginning.

 

For the first 4 years we lived in a terraced house with one family living upstairs and our family of five living downstairs - both families sharing the outside toilet and for us a tin bath. It was the same for many in this area.

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At five we moved to a council house in West Ham which was significant in that there was a church and a pub opposite. Our playgrounds were the "debris" left from the World War II bombings.It was a rough area with rough people and could easily have defined me. 

 

I would hear the bells chiming on a Sunday and music from the pub on just about every other night of the week.

 

At the age of seven I joined the church choir (following in my brothers foot-steps) and this was my first introduction to music - that, and “discovering” that my grandparents had an old, out of tune piano which, at the age of around eight, made a great sound if I stuck to just playing the black notes alone. I honestly believe it was the instant reward from playing that old piano that got me hooked on wanting to write music. I remember it like it was just yesterday  - such was the impact.

 

I sang in the West Ham Church choir for 12 years [it was better than playing on the debris] and during that time I also joined the boy scouts, school choir, sang and played recorder in music festivals, attended the Royal School of Church Music and started to write my first proper songs at around the age of 15. The songs were written using a miniature organ which only had one volume so I covered and taped up the speakers to lower the volume.

 

I left the choir at about 18 and, with some friends, formed a pop group  called “NFG” which was a most appropriate name.

 

I then joined a new group called “Raw Sienna” which toured the pubs and working mens clubs around the East End of London playing just cover versions. By this time I had improved my keyboard skills - enough to knock out a few songs.

 

Tony Bowler was the guitar player and, at the age of 14, was amazing. He went on to form the tribute band called the “UK Bee Gees” which took him around the world 

supporting well known groups including “Sister Sledge”.  They are still going strong and doing well !!

 

Tony and I would often work on each others songs putting them down onto a four track Teac - bouncing the channels to get more layering. It was actually a great learning curve!!

 

I left school at 16 and went into International banking. With money I started buying Burt Bacharach albums. I would analyse them, work out the chord structures and progressions and try to play them on keyboard. As time went by my keyboard skills improved further. 

 

Burt Bacharach was without a doubt my hero and, although of course he does not know it, he effectively taught me the principals of writing songs.

 

It was that passion to write songs (rather than do cover versions) that caused me to leave “Raw Sienna”.

 

For some 40 years after leaving the group I focused on writing songs. I wrote them just for myself - they were never performed anywhere,  never released and remained simply on the tape of the four track Teac.

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Many years later I starting recording on the Cubase Digital work station (DAW) and then came The Reason DAW which, from its very inception, opened up a whole new way of expressing my music.

 

Later came a web site called “Allihoopa” where I could very easily upload my music and collaborate with others around the world. I was absolutely blown away by the support I received on Allihoopa. It completely re-ignited my passion for song-writing. Allihoopa had such great collaboration tools - it was a hit factory  - and allowed a level of creation I doubt will ever be found again as sadly the site ran out of money and closed.

 

By uploading my songs, and getting love, appreciation and encouragement, I improved my game and even started to sing my songs.

 

Good friendships were made through that site and to this day I am blessed in being able to listen to, communicate with, collaborate and work with some great musicians from around the world.

 

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This for me was and still is a dream come true and could never have believed that I would hear my music with such great collaborators assisting.

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And so the story continues….it is actually just the beginning.

 

With regard to the process of writing music, this only comes to me when I feel some strong emotion with what develops. My hope and dream is that others too will sense that emotion and have a song resonate with them in some way.

 

It is the quest for magic that makes the process so rewarding….

 

I hope you enjoy my music.