I grew up in Durban, South Africa in the late'50s and, although listening to the songs of Elvis, Cliff Richard, Rick Nelson and then the Beatles, Bee Gees, Otis Redding, Canned Heat and Hendrix in the '60s, was never pulled toward performance until the 1st tune I ever picked out on a guitar in 1963 - 'Satisfaction (can't get no)' by the Rolling Stones - then I was bitten by the bug!
I returned to my home town in 1971 after spending a year (involutarily) in the South African armed forces and began playing in folk clubs with my brother Syd (check out his web site on www.sydkitchen.com or his Myspace page - he's developed into an Urban legend in South Africa in recent years and plays a mean jazz guitar and hose pipe) and harmonica player Marc Maingard (he's now a world renowned luthier based in Cape Town). Towards the latter part of that period, we were joined by an incredible cellist, Rob Larsen and the band Kitchen was formed. We toured much of South Africa doing the 'Folk festivals' and clubs but were never able to secure that elusive record deal that most of us had dreamed of at some stage or another.
In January 2007, I awoke from a 21 year musical sleep and felt much like Rip van Winkle must have felt - amazed! Returning to my folk roots, I have found that although musicians still play the clubs and call it "folk" music, the acoustic revolution happened while I was sleeping and a whole new generation of guitarists has risen up and is playing the most amazing music: and playing it incredibly well too!!
I'm now gigging around Norfolk, Cambridge and Suffolk and looking forward to getting into the plethora of festivals coming up.
The debut CD, "A road less travelled" has been a long time in the making and still needs a lot of studio time. Hey, it's taken me nearly 40 years to work on my finger-picking style, what's a few more months to get the recording right?