Graham’s musical career commenced at the age of 12, after his father taught him the rudiments of guitar playing, and introduced him to the wonders of the Bert Weedon songbook. Growing up in Liverpool during the 60’s it was impossible to ignore the influence of the Beatles on his musical direction, and the band output (together and individually) remain a favourite to this day. His musical tastes developed to take in the rock genre, and bands such as Free, Zeppelin and Deep Purple started making their way onto his turntable. In 1972 a school mate brought around an album featuring a mythical tank/armadillo character on its cover and after the third play, Graham was hooked on the power of progressive rock and (more specifically) Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Discovering at an early age that he was entirely hopeless at football, a musical career was decided upon instead and all efforts were made to make his fortune fronting a very loud and successful rock band. The obligatory school bands were formed with Graham on lead vocals and guitar, and these developed into an involvement with semi-pro bands who gigged around the north-west during the seventies and early eighties. More recently, Graham has been working with EMP (E-Music Project) - a group of talented musicians located in the USA who record and produce covers of ELP and Beatles tracks over the Internet. So far Graham has provided vocals on most of the bands ELP covers, as well as playing guitar on ‘Lucky Man’ and ‘I Believe in Father Xmas’. He has built a home studio which he uses to record his daughter and other artists, as well as to produce his own music.
Graham is relishing the challenge of playing the music live which he has loved and grown up with throughout his life. “Like so many others of my generation, the music of ELP has meant so much to me at various times. To have the opportunity to play them live is giving me the chills!”
Cakewalk Sonar Home Studio V6, Sound Forge 8, Behringer Mixing Desks, Sony
monitors, Shure and M-Audio microphones.