With a musical history stretching back to the late 50s and the first spine tingling sounds of songs like Rave On and Come On Everybody, “I goes back a long way!”

My interest in blues was sparked in the mid sixties through hearing records by John Lee Hooker, Elmore James etc. I investigated the playing styles of John Hurt and Gary Davis through Stefan Grossman's pioneering work in the seventies. My love of the pre-war blues has continued ever since. It is a truism that “the blues picks you”, not the other way round.

At the grand old age of 62, I decided to return to live performance - playing bass with a Glasgow based blues-rock band. We did quite a bit of gigging during 2007. By the turn of 2008 I decided to launch out as a solo performer - easily the hardest thing I’ve done musically. After testing the water with a few open mic sessions, my maiden flight took place at the Fresh Bar, Edinburgh. By the end of 2008 I had appeared at venues such as the Bon Accord, Hubbards, the State Bar and Bacchus, Glasgow; Bar Bliss, Kirkintilloch; MAMAS, Crieff (supporting Tim Elliot and Sandy Tweedale); St Vigeans Halls, Arbroath (supporting the Krissy Matthews Band).

I also had bottlenecks (slides) made to my own design; these are featured on the home page at Diamond Bottlenecks (http://www.diamondbottlenecks.com) with a link to my myspace page. Also, the guys at Busker Guitars in Wales have been kind enough to use a sound clip of mine on the Messer Blues page of their website (http://www.buskerguitars.co.uk) which was acknowledged by Michael Messer himself.

My highlight of 2008 was taking part in the Dundee Blues Bonanza. As a result one of my aims for 2009 is to do more festival work as well as developing my pub and club work.

My set includes mainly pre-war acoustic blues using natural, open D, open G and open C tunings, finger-style slide and occasional harmonica. As well as drawing material loosely based on the likes of Charley Patton, Fred McDowell, Willie McTell, Skip James, Ma Rainey etc, I am building a core of self-penned material.