I am married to Clare, we have a son called William and we hail from Derby,
which is where Derby County F.C. come from. I say that because most people think they’re called Derby County nil!
I played music from a very early age, as my parents were very involved in the Salvation Army. It wasn’t long before I was learning how to play a brass instrument, and also taking piano lessons. One of my abiding memories of childhood was that we used to join together with our relatives and put on concerts as a family (sounds like the Von Trapps!!).
At junior school I started going to guitar club and very soon this became ‘the thing I wanted to do’. One thing led to another, and my sister and I joined up with cousins Ian and Lynn Blythe to form a ‘folk group’. Along with Ian, we began writing songs together, and it wasn’t long before we became quite well known within the Salvation Army music circles. We also performed at the Royal Albert Hall and The Barbican which was quite a blast.
Also at this time, around my mid teens, I had begun to play concerts with good friend John Hartley under the infamous name ‘Phil & John’ ( it took a long time to think of that one!). Things really began to take off for us, and with the concert and recording schedule becoming ever busier we eventually turned professional in 1982. There then followed many years of working together touring the UK, USA, Australia and Europe. We both moved on to other things in the late nineties, and John moved to America, where he is now a successful producer and songwriter based in Nashville.
Along with Ian, David and Adrian, we worked on several very successful projects, which you will find here on my page, the latest being a ‘prequel’ to City of Gold entitled ‘Road to the City’.
More recently I have been combining the studies for my Music degree with songwriting and production work, and this has led to the forming of a new recording and production company, Open Road Music, which is based here in my hometown. We have just completed a Christmas EP for one of our new artists, Rosie Meek. You can keep up to date with our latest projects by visiting the web-site.
