My autobiography [visit my personal site here]
I started playing the guitar a long time ago: at age
12 in 1961. That was the year I heard Hank Marvin playing the tune
'Apache' (thanks, Hank) and I've been hooked ever since. I've been
earning my living with my guitars since 1968, about the time I started
playing slide, which is what I'm best known for in Australia.
 I lived in London during the early seventies where I
recorded an album with fellow Montrealer Dwight Druick. We formed
a band with a young American guy called Seymour
Duncan on lead. I
remember he was always dissatisfied with his sound.
In 1975, I moved to Sydney Australia and began playing
on various recording sessions there... album tracks, movie soundtracks
and more TV and radio commercials than I could count. (Click
here for discography). I formed a band called Sleeping Dogs with
Doug Ashdown and Wayne Findlay which opened for Supertramp around
the country on their World Tour. I also toured and recorded with
one of Australia's great songwriters, Richard
Clapton, contributing to
his albums 'Goodbye Tiger' (which went top 5), 'Mainstreet
Jive' and the 'Highway One' soundtrack.
In 1984, I recorded and produced a solo album of my own
songs called NO APOSTROPHE (listen
to some tracks here) which received
great reviews and went top 15 in Perth and Adelaide. During
that period I also recorded and toured with Marc Hunter who had left
his band Dragon to pursue a solo career. Glenn Shorrock, ex Little
River Band also hired me for his band and more recently, Glenn hooked
up with his old cohort Brian
Cadd to form Blazing Salads, a wonderful
band which toured Australia several times.
During
the late eighties, Kevin Bennett and I formed a four piece band
Chasin The Train (listen
to us live here) which enjoyed legendary status
in Sydney. We play some of our own material and covered a bunch
of Little Feat, Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, Jesse Winchester and the
like... Country with a boogie beat. The Train supported John
Mayall and The
Band (a cut down version, minus Robbie and Levon) on their Australian
tours. Another band I formed, The Six Amigos, had the pleasure
of opening for The Highwaymen (Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson,
Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash) during their Australia tour in '94.
Other international acts I've opened for as a solo act
include Leo Kottke, John Martyn, Bert
Jantsh, Mose Allison and John
Hammond. I have always given lessons on a casual basis, but a few
years ago I started staging workshops where I passed on my 'trick'.
I wrote a 14 page booklet for those workshops, and that booklet grew
into PlaneTalk a couple of years later. I flew to Montréal where
my tasteful brother Gerry designed and edited it on his big Mac.
Thanks, Gerry.
I moved to Tamborine Mountain (near Brisbane) in 1998
to be closer to my three kids who lived in Byron Bay. I formed
a three piece band there called MumboGumbo, I played in three or
four other line-ups, worked solo, marketed PlaneTalk, staged workshops,
wrote songs, designed web sites etc. etc.
In May 2004 I returned
to Canada and stayed for a year in British Columbia.
I own a beautiful 1951 Gibson J-50, an
early 60's Strat, a '63 Gibson nylon string, an old Kay, a "Kim
Hancock" hand-carved
archtop and the first 'good' guitar I bought, a 1966 Goya Classical. I've also recently acquired a couple of 'Palm' guitars made by local luthier extraordinaire Michael Palm - one is a resonator, the other an acoustic steel string. Pictures coming soon.
To hear and see some of my playing, go to my YouTube page (half a million views) and my Soundclick page (220,000 listens).
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