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Category: Musician

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Hat’s off to Mr David Holloway, the founder of the YouTube site - ‘The Keyboard Chronicles’.  His tireless efforts interviewing keyboard players from all over the globe is fast making this the ‘go-to’ resource for professional 1st hand advice and experience, hopefully with a few laughs along the way. 

I was delighted and honoured to be invited to chat with him about many things including my career in music, pop artists I’ve worked with over the years and even talk about keyboard development with Roland and Yamaha and the challenges that the retail industry faces nowadays.

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Following my Facebook Post on the ‘We Grew Up In Watford’ Group, I was contacted by journalist Panayiota Demosthenous. She was interested in knowing a little more about a letter I received from Elton John back in February 1978 , having written to him at Watford FC only a few days before. It was a source of inspiration for a young musician like myself and I’ve forever been grateful to the Pop Icon for taking the time to write to me. So if you live in the Watford area you may have seen the article in the April edition of Watford News. A fitting tribute in recognition of Elton’s kindness. 

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Wow - I cant believe it’s been February since my last post. Suffice to say I’ve been very busy and very grateful for it.

Since March I've been to Slovakia, Czech, Austria and Sweden with the Dire Straits  Exeprience. We had a tour of the Netherlands in May and various trips to France in June, July and August plus a tour of Germany. 

I'm currently sitting in a hotel room in Sydney writing this post as we are now touring New Zealand and Australia with a little stop off at Tahiti on the way home for a gig. We’ll barely have enough time to unpack our bags and then we leave for France for 3 and half weeks in November. Even December sees two final pre Christmas gigs, one in Helsinki, the other in Madrid. 

So that’s my excuse for the lack of posts to my website - apologies. 

It’s been a great year for work and I try never to take it for granted. 

Who knows what 2025 will bring....

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Thanks to the pandemic , I’ve been encouraged to look for other outlets for my musical pursuits. I’m glad to say that my ‘Piano Life’ You Tube channel has gained a little momentum albeit modest by some standards. But the purpose of the channel has really been a flag-waving exercise and, as and when time permits, I shall continue with content. One notable video is my piano cover of ‘We Bought A Zoo’ which has now reached 2.4K views. If you have a moment, please take a look and listen.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4fo9hDSdIpIvOBFK2qEnQ/videos

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Welcome back after what feels like a very surreal and enforced sabbatical. I’m pleased to say that glimmers of normality appear to be returning.

A few weeks ago I experienced my first proper gig in over 18 months at a beautiful setting at the Festival in Vilar les Dombes just north of Lyon. The Dire Straits Experience visited France on a tour bus, some 13 of us (musicians and crew). 

Whilst the gig was an absolute pleasure and the French audience was amazing , the journey across the English channel was somewhat challenging. Sadly the combination of Covid travel restrictions and more annoyingly , the Post Brexit restrictions , make this kind of journey very troublesome . But nonetheless  we made it. A relief after having no less than 6 gigs since June cancelled due to the aforementioned troubles We hope to be visiting Israel in October for a four date tour that was postponed in August. Fingers crossed this will go ahead. Watch this space !

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I've been overwhelmed by the positive and enthusiastic response to my music video - an arrangement of ' I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. I was so grateful to the musicians who agreed to participate to support the music charity - 'HelpMusicians.Org.Uk'. We've had nearly 8000 thousand views on Facebook and nearly 200 'shares'.  The video was produced by my neighbour Adrian Kingston and the track mixed by Nick Pugh of Session Corner. I've now uploaded it to my YouTube page - please visit and give it a thumbs up ! Or subscribe to my channel if the mood grabs you ! Many Thanks

 

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With plenty of free time available due to the Corona Virus situation I’m pleased to be getting on with some new ventures at home. A particularly exciting one for me is the creation of my own channel on YouTube called ‘Piano Life’. For ages I’ve wanted to create some educational videos for students and alike, so I've been learning Apple’s video editing software, Final Cut Pro, and have already started uploading some new videos. Please take a look when you have a moment. I’ve tried some different approaches to learning piano and also included some of the ‘Pianist Magazine’ videos I did for Roland a few years ago. I welcome constructive comments and requests if you have any. Many thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4fo9hDSdIpIvOBFK2qEnQ

 

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What better way to start the New Year than with a bit of Rock ’n Roll with Spike Edney’s Allstar Band. Sadly the great man was unable to attend himself due to his Queen commitments. Instead, Guitar Rock Lord, Jamie Moses lead us on this fabulous gig in Madrid on the 20th Jan. (picture attached).

After this the Dire Straits Experience had a full week’s rehearsal at Soundstage Studios in Acton in readiness for the big three week tour coming up in March in Czech, Poland and France. 

Currently I’m touring on the Branden Cole UK event, The Showman having missed last year’s. Sadly I’m only able to do 12 of the 16 dates due to the imminent DSE tour.

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To be playing Christmas tunes in Dubai. For the 3rd year running, the concert promoter Raymond Gubbay has put on six ‘Jingle Bells’ concerts in the space of three days for an enthusiastic audience. It's immense fun, if not a bit strange seeing Christmas woolly sweaters being worn outside in temperatures of 25 degrees.  

To finish of the Christmas festivities Ill be playing at the Barbican on the 21st December for a double show day with an even bigger orchestra. For details click on the link below:  

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2019/event/jingle-bell-christmas

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What a great way to finish the year with 12 gigs in just over 2 weeks covering Belgium, Holland and France. As per usual, great audiences and great venues. That just about wraps it up for 2019 - a very busy year for the Dire Straits Experience although we are awaiting confirmation of a possible New Years Eve Gig in Bucharest. The photo attached is of myself and Sax player extraordinaire, Chris White, who played with the original Dire Straits back in the 80s. It's taken by an amazing photographer, Jo Sudau, who has followed the band from venue to venue getting some terrific shots.