BUSY BEGINNING TO THE YEAR

21st April 2019

STRAWBS AT 50
 

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for not keeping you up to date on everything recently. As you will see from this summary, I'm been pretty busy! I'm writing this from a hotel room in New Jersey, USA, having just completed a 7 date US tour with Strawbs. Tomorrow, setting up and rehearsals start for the Strawbs 50th Anniversary weekend at The Strand Theatre, Lakewood New Jersey (on 26th/27th April). This is a truly one off event and I'm thrilled to be involved. There are some fantastic guests, including legendary record producer Tony Visconti, Annie Haslam (Rennaissance), Larry Fast (Peter Gabriel band), Eric Bazillian (The Hooters), Wes Stace, plus many previous members of the band, including John Ford, Blue Weaver and John Hawken. Rick Wakeman was scheduled to appear but sadly had to pull out due to family health issues. There will also be the Terra Nova Orchestra, featuring many of New York and New Jersey's finest musicians, and the United Nations choir! I've worked on 6 orchestral arrangements for the event and two of the choir arrangements, so the past couple of months have been incredibly busy indeed!!

ON THE OCEAN WAVES!
I was in Miami at the end of January, rehearsing with Fernando Perdomo's On the Blue band for 'Cruise to the Edge', hosted by the band Yes. The cruise was great fun and I was fortunate enough to then play with Strawbs the following week on the On The Blue music cruise.

LIFESIGNS

More travelling followed in March with my first tour dates in Germany and The Netherlands with Lifesigns. A few of the dates were co-headliners with King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto's band ORK. We then had a couple more gigs in the UK.

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RECORDING

I was thrilled to be asked by David Paton to play a guitar solo on his latest album 'The Traveller'. David was/is the singer/bassist in Pilot, and has played with many famous names. He was also in the original Alan Parson's Project band. The album is now available.

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My good friend Frank van Essen's amazing solo album 'Sanctum' has now also been released. I played a lot on this album and have a couple of co-writing credits.

There is lots more news, and loads of gigs coming up, which I'll update you on very soon!

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