Unsigned Entertainment

In the house I grew up in music was not a thing to be taken lightly. Dad sang with such raw emotion that as a young child I used to scream for him to stop. They were Irish songs in the old style, elongated & lilting. From a time before guitars & professional “Folk music”. My brother Greg’s violin music was permitted because he practised till he fell asleep. Basically, if you weren’t serious, you had to shut up, & children should be running about outside with their friends. When I was 12, the music teacher at school discovered I could sing. The bad bit was I was a boy soprano & the school was all boys. Singers carried a death warrant on their heads, coz “real men” let their punches do the talking. Puberty hit & I discovered R&B & guitar rock. As long as I wore headphones I was safe from the critics outside my door. One day I stumbled across John Lee Hooker & Carlos Santana together. That was it. Then I heard the hotspot with John Lee & Taj Mahal & Miles Davis. The snowball was growing for me. The songs I written in my head one day wound up on the piece of paper in front of me. My musical development progressed with no logic. I wound up in situations & was expected to play. I sang Gospel, Country, I sang & drummed in The Bula Brothers, a Fijian “grog” band, where I learned 4-part Pacific harmonies, I played rock. Marriage break-ups saw a camel’s back broken & I found myself in the Streets of London alone. A one-man show emerged. The songs I played were the sort one man can pull off. Hence the blues. The music of a man alone. Sing the blues & people appear. We all started to Boogie-woogie & as John Lee had predicted it felt so good…the story goes on.

 

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