Bio
I'm a British guitarist and songwriter, born and raised in London. Some of my earliest musical memories were from my grandfather, a farmer who used to make musical pipes out of reeds with a penknife. One of these pipes was my first instrument, followed by a mouth organ, another gift from my grandfather. I had piano lessons when I was seven but fell in love with the guitar when I was 14 or so.
I absorbed a lot of different music growing up, mainly from the second-hand Tape & Record Exchange in Camden Town - Rock, 80's synth, Soul, Classical, Folk, Jazz, Prog Rock and a dose of Heavy Metal. I slept outside Hammersmith Odeon once to get front row tickets for Iron Maiden. I have Nikko McBrain's drumstick in my drawer and a Tommy Lee drumstick too. I saw Ozzy Osbourne front row at Hammersmith Odeon with Jake E Lee soloing in front of my nose - I plucked plectrums from his pickguard. They were purple and had his autograph on them. I met BB King once backstage at Hammersmith too, and in the same year had a jam with Huw Lloyd-Langton from Hawkwind.
But as an acoustic/folk guitarist I was possibly most blown away watching Jerry Donahue playing The Claw on a telecaster and hearing Jorma Kaukonen's Embryonic Journey for the first time. Possibly the earliest songs I loved were from an 8-track of the magical Bridge Over Troubled Waters.
I released my first EP of acoustic pieces at the end of 2015. It was a pretty rough affair, home-recorded, but received some nice feedback from folk and indie reviewers - notably Tim Carroll at FolkWords and the Italian music journalist Giancarlo Susanna.
My 2018 single “Give Me Your Horse” was a bigger, jazzier number which had airplay on both Folk stations as well as Jazz including BBC Jazz Nights.
In May and June 2019, I was in the studio recording some pieces on acoustic guitar. I was pretty happy with them but thought I'd have to step things up a bit to reach the sound of "Give Me Your Horse", the single from the album. So I asked the players on the single if they'd come in again to record a couple of live tracks and colour in some of the acoustic takes. It was a pleasure and honour playing with Hammond maestro Steve Lodder, the unique Marc Parnell on drums and the fantastic Davide Mantovani on bass - as it was obviously with the great jazz trumpeter Steve Waterman and the legendary Guy Pratt on bass on the single.
These recordings and the single made up my first album “Fag Ash and Beer" released in September 2019. In 2020/2021 Fatea Magazine nominated "Fag Ash and Beer" for Debut Album of the Year and I released a handful of tracks during the lockdowns.
I released my second album "Always Seeking" in 2023. It was great to record with the same guys from the first album including engineer Kenny Jones, plus the wonderful singer Kate Kurdyak from the Canadian noir pop band Vox Rea and the phenomenal John Etheridge on lead guitar on three of the tracks. The artwork is by the fantastic Anthony Macbain which added a new dimension to the music - I'm currently looking at pressing a limited run of vinyl featuring the artwork.
Also see:- Q & A with Darren Johnson in June 2023 after the release of "Always Seeking". Darren also interviewed me in December 2019 after my debut album.
