My Career and other Deviations

I played music from an early age, starting with harmonica and recorder, and then guitar, flute and my favourite sax, the soprano. I love the soprano because it can sound like a baroque trumpet, an oboe, bagpipes, Turkish and Indian shawms, and ancient andf otherworldly horns.

I worked as a music business journalist in London in the 1970s, on Beat Instrumental and then Guitar magazine. I did many interviews (B B King, Albert King, Frank Zappa, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, George Benson, Carlos Santana, Rory Gallagher, Andres Segovia, John Williams, Steve Howe, John Etheridge, Bo Diddley, Allan Holdsworth, Robin Trower, Lee Ritenour, Andy Summers, Robert Fripp, and many more) and concert and record reviews. I worked sometimes as a session guitarist. Later I moved into publicity, working with Keith Goodwin, founder of KayGee Publicity, in Denmark Street. We worked for artists such as Vangelis, Yes, George Melly, Judas Priest, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Rory Gallagher, Mud and for a while even the Happy Hooker herself, Xaviera Hollander.

I went to Portugal for a sunny decade, living inland in beautiful Tomar for a few months and then at Estoril and Cascais, along the coast from Lisbon. More recently I lived on the Algarve for a year, but I returned to Lisbon where one of my harps now lives. I love playing in Portugal and have learned several Portuguese tunes.

For a heartfelt reason I came back to England...

... and I took up harp after waking up dreaming about it one rainy morning. I had always loved the harp sounds and moods, and then discovered later that day that Bristol's only harp teacher lived in the next street. I started lessons, practised madly and gradually discovered the harp to be an extremely versatile instrument, able to span enormous distances in time, culture and mood. Picture the totality of music as a pie chart, containing everything, ancient, modern, folky, classical, experimental, intellectual, earthy: the harp can produce something from every area. As I´m interested in virtually all kinds of music, the harp suits me very well. I started playing for diners in The Gate vegetarian restaurant in Hammersmith, weddings followed, and then came the talks, passing on some of the instrument's fascinating history.