A Bit About Me

Hi again
          as I said in the Home page I was born many moons ago in the Emerald Isle (Ireland) on a mild April day falling on a Holy Thursday. I had the privilege of being born into a musical family. My Mam was a piano player / teacher and my Dad was a fine singer. But I was first introduced to music by my Granny who, herself was a melodeon player of great caliper." Jam sessions" were a frequent happening in our house, with my cousins and uncle's always involved. So I suppose it was only natural that I should drift into this vain.
          The first instrument that I played was the harmonica (which I still feature in my act), from there it went to accordion. I was doing really well there until tragedy struck when I was seven years old. I fell on an old garbage dump, which contained a large pile of glass, one dark evening while playing with my friends and almost lost my right hand after it was torn apart. But thanks to the know how of a great surgeon, the hand was saved. But the accordion days were gone forever as I could no longer bend my fingers to get around the accordion keys. But I did prevail and moved swiftly onto the piano instead, under the watchful eye of our piano teacher, my mother. It wasn't long 'till she got me into this. During this time my right hand was getting stronger all the time, but up to this point, having to use my left hand for everything, gave me the advantage of being ambidextrous. Which is a huge plus when it comes to playing music. I began to progress in "leaps and bounds". Around this time my uncle who was a professional drummer for a number of years asked me if I would like to learn to play drums. I readily agreed, and began to work hard on this also. I really loved this as it gave me the chance to "let it rip" compared to the intense concentration of learning piano, so both of these instruments progressed side by side. In my early teens my sister started going out with her future husband, who played pretty tidy guitar. His guitar playing really influenced me to the point of spending time with him learning chords etc. I couldn't afford to buy my own guitar, so he generously loaned me one of his. I set to work immediately and soon I was able to accompany myself. My guitar heroes at that time were mainly Irish folk singers, because as yet I hadn't played an electric instrument. Now my trio of my main instruments were complete, I began to write music and songs. With all of this music around me I set about getting into a band.
          This didn't take too long as some of my friends were getting together to try and get an act going. We practised hard and soon we had a big following, especially from the local girls. We played all the graduation dances in the area as well as hundreds more general venues. But as bands go it was hard to keep it all together, many bands came and went. During all this time I continued to write songs, recording them the best way I could afford and sending them around to various record company's, publishers and song contests. Finally I decided to issue my own albums which I still do to date. I tried many times to hold the guys I played with together, but there was always someone leaving for one reason or another. So in the end I simply got tired of trying and I went solo. Sometimes doing acoustic solo gigs, other times using my keyboard's backing tracks and playing along on either piano or guitar. I've also done a lot of cabaret work over the years, both in pubs, clubs and for many years now, on cruise ships. But during all this time I have never stopped writing and I've always believed in my music and songs. My latest offering is an album called "Keep A Smile" which is currently on the "Album Shop" page. I've included a brief description of all the tracks and how they came about, on that page also.
So after the "Photos" page please have a wee listen and hopefully you will enjoy some of the songs, see you there.