ABOUT
Welcome - I suspect I'm a grown-up artist, what with my black and white pictures and my decades accrued.. does grown-up mean mature? Perish the thought as this rock and roll malarkey is, by its nature a teenage pursuit. One of the many great things about keeping doing this stuff is that as each year passes, the number of tosses given about any of the distractions like fame, chart success or any of that nonsense becomes well, negligible
So - if it’s a trip you’re after into whatever world or sphere I inhabit, then welcome yet again - there’ll be dogs,philosophy, twang and gentlemen’s politics a-plenty, in a part-Hebridean accent and accompanied mainly by stringed instruments and precious little pitch correction.
Enjoy.
NBH Jan 2024
​
BIOG
Until recently Guitarist / vocalist / songwriter in The Coal Porters
now a solo performer, presenting original material in the roots/Americana vein, but with a distinct brogue - taking a tip from the Proclaimers and singing in an unvarnished caledonian brogue (two polished shoes would later become available) Played in a selection of Scottish outfits, came to London and hooked up with various acts on the busking / alternative cabaret scene, spent a few years as “Scots Billy Bragg” before deciding to focus on music after an unnamed Scottish comedy producer unwisely suggested abandoning the guitar.... formed pre-grunge power trio Handsome, crowdfunded an EP before the concept fully existed.
Other musical adventures included co-ordinating 25 ‘Louie-Louie’ playing guitarists for comic & provocateur Mark Thomas. An untreated steel guitar habit precipitated a memorable summer spent in the Hank Williams bio-musical Pills Thrills & Backaches (“Hank” being Steve Delaney aka Count Arthur Strong...) A brief tini-tenure in loud suit-rockers Avalanche followed (“Marti Pellow meets the Bad Seeds...”). The lure of the rural beckoned and a new outfit “The Trophy Husbands” were cleft, playing proper twanging country music, which eventually led to co-option into Sid Griffin’s Western Electric and The Coal Porters. After playing acoustic bluegrass for nearly two happy decades, A first solo release Every soul a story saw some plugging in and turning up as The Dirty Little Acoustic Band along with fellow ex- Porter and multi-instrumentalist Paul Fitzgerald and seasoned Kentish / Caledonian rhythm section Glenn Lamberton (bass) and Gary Smith Lyons (drums). Guest players Lucy Edwards (accordion, ex-Well Oiled Sisters) and Gemma White (fiddle, another ex-Porter).
