The beginning
I started playing guitar when I was 16 years old or somewhere near there. To be honest it was a long time ago, and I am completely self taught, which basically means I think I can play better than I actually do. Of course when learning to play there are certain songs in those times you learnt like "The Boxer" and "The House of the Rising Sun". But I was always intrigued by some of the finger picking blues styles and by chance came across Stefan Grossman, a delta blues finger picking guitar expert. I learnt many of his tracks such as "Coney Island Cakewalk" and that's when I really fell in love with the Guitar. I made a decision at that point that moving forward I would only play my own material.
Of course in those early years it was absolutely terrible!. Songs I thought were great sounded more like a cat on a hot tin roof. But over time I got a little better. I moved from Ireland (my country of origin) to London and stumbled across the "Barnet Blues Club" a group that met in a local bar and held an open mic night. There was a simple rule which was you could only play original material which suited me. And slowly as I immersed myself there I learnt more and got a little better. I appeared on two of the groups home produced albums, played in other bars, and even appeared on radio in later years.
Then I moved to Singapore (where I live currently). Again I played in bars, bookshops and other venues that held open mic nights. I even went to a professional study (Zion Studios) to record some of my music at the time. After a while work took over and I put my guitar down and focused on that for many years until recently. I realised that home recording equipment had become cheaper, and technology had progressed in leaps and bounds, and decided to dust off my guitar and continue the Journey.
These albums represent just that. A mixture of past songs refreshed for today with new tracks inspired from my life, the lives of friends, and society in general where I find all of my inspiration from. I mostly write these songs for myself to capture some of those thought/feelings at that point in time but if you find something here that you like, let me know, and if not that's ok too.
We all have our own journeys to make.
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