I began playing in the folk clubs of Northern England when I was seventeen, two years after I’d picked up a guitar on hearing Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. My second ever public performance was supporting Isaac Guillory, a brilliant guitar player from New York, in the Poynton Folk Centre. I can’t remember ever feeling more nervous.
After touring as support with The Beautiful South I moved to London in 2003 and began playing guitar for Emiliana Torrini. We toured Europe, America, Australia and the Middle East. Amongst the highlights of this time was playing support for Elvis Costello at the Montreaux Jazz festival, playing to a packed Guardian tent at Glastonbury and performing to thousands in an old boat shed in remotest Iceland with Belle & Sebastian.
Spring 2008 was spent recording my debut solo album ‘Houdini’s Blues’, sung and played live, inspired by the early field recordings I listen to made by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins.
The songs on this album reflect how I see the world we live in – from war to the shooting of an innocent man getting on a train, through longing and loneliness, to hope and friendship.