John Kirkbride (musician)

John Kirkbride August 21, 2008

John Kirkbride (born February 17, 1946 in Ullapool in northwest Scotland ) is a Scottish singer, (slide) guitarist, songwriter and entertainer.

It is characteristic of Kirkbride's live performances that he creates a close relationship with the audience through authentic blues music by including them with anecdotes and funny, sometimes socially critical, side comments. At his concerts he plays blues and jazz standards from the 20s, 30s and 1940s as well as his own compositions.

Live and act

Kirkbride and his family immigrated from Scotland to Queensland , Australia, at the age of eight . There he got his first guitar and started teaching himself to play the guitar. He tuned the guitar to a chord without knowing that this was exactly the guitar tuning that the first generation of blues singers in the Mississippi Delta used as a so-called open tuning for slide or bottleneck play. Kirkbride didn't learn conventional guitar tuning until years later. His playing was later heavily influenced by the Mississippi Delta blues musician Robert Johnson .

In his early twenties, Kirkbride returned to Great Britain, where he improved his guitar technique. At that time, the popular British group The Shadows (with whom he played a session years later) was a huge influence on him. After listening to a record by country guitarist Chet Atkins , he came into contact with his playing style, fingerpicking , which would shape him from then on.

Kirkbride also began composing through the influence of songwriters such as Carole King , Joni Mitchell , Randy Newman , Neil Young, and Leonard Cohen . In doing so, he learned how to create a dialogue between text and music. This explains the preference for texts with socially critical and political points, which can still be seen to this day.

After the end of his military service with the British Air Force ( Royal Air Force ), where he served as a transport pilot (and according to his own account was shot down once over Yemen ), Kirkbride settled in New York in the late 1960s with the intention of being there to live only from music.

It was difficult for Kirkbride to make a living with music. He expanded his technique and all of his musical knowledge and performed as an accompanist a. a. by Pete Seeger and Lightnin 'Hopkins . In addition, over time he played a. a. with BB King , Eric Clapton , John Mayall , Louisiana Red , Alexis Korner , Chuck Leavell and Albie Donnelly .

After a stopover in Holland in 1976, where he began to enrich the blues pieces he had learned (including many by his highly esteemed Robert Johnson) with melody and harmony, Kirkbride moved to Germany in the early 80s, where he still lives today. He worked for many years with the writer Hans-Christian Kirsch , whose readings he accompanied with classical or Celtic music, blues or jazz, depending on the program.

Kirkbride occurs today u. a. with the Bavarian blues harp player Ferdl Eichner, with whom he has already made numerous recordings.

Discography

LPs

Tracks
Magnetic Mugshots of Memorable Moments
Sourdough, corn and hot biscuits
Reds and Blues

CDs

Blue Images
Street kids
Brotherhood in Blues (with Ferdl Eichner)
Adam and Eve (with Hans-Christian Kirsch)
The Celtic Magic Mirror (with Hans-Christian Kirsch)
Riches to Rags (with Ferdl Eichner)
Changing of the Ways (to the book Blues Ballads by Hans-Christian Kirsch )
Return Cargo (with Albie Donnelly)
Sketches
Lifeline (with Ferdl Eichner). 2009
The Gambler (with Andreas Schirneck). 2013

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Kirkbride, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Scottish singer
DATE OF BIRTH	February 17, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ullapool , Scotland