biography
I began my musical ‘career’ playing in a succession of local bands in and around Weymouth, Dorset, a couple of which hit the woodwork in terms of music business success.
I then returned to my first love, i.e. blues and r&b, enjoying long spells with Custer's Last Blues Band and Brahms & Liszt, the seminal blues outfits in the South West of England.
I then teamed up with ex-Pretenders and Paul McCartney guitarist Robbie McIntosh, and we formed the Steamer Ducks, a full-on Chicago blues-style band. I joined Robbie on a number of other musical projects, including a series of gigs in author Douglas Adams' front room alongside the likes of David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, Margo Buchanan and Paul 'Wix' Wickens. This, with drummer Paul Beavis, was the line-up that played at Adams ' memorial service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in London in September 2001. This celebration of Douglas 's life was broadcast live around the world via BBC World Service webcast.
With McIntosh, 'cellist Chas Dickie and drummer Chris Page I recorded the musically ambitious and critically acclaimed album Nine Stones under the name Polygenes.
In 1992, percussionist Steve Mutter and pianist/vocalist Sammy Hurden and I formed the Jess Upton Soul Band, a nine-piece soul/funk review showcasing Jess's extraordinary vocal prowess.
I worked with boogie piano phenomenon Ben Waters for over fifteen years. Together we played at the Cork Jazz Festival (on nine occasions), the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, the 100 Club, Ronnie Scott’s (London and Birmingham), the Glastonbury Festival (1999 and 2000) The Cambridge Folk Festival, Trowbridge Festival as well as other tours and festivals in Britain, Europe, Scandinavia, Canada and the Middle East, recording three albums and notching up various TV and radio sessions during that time. The most recent CD, Shakin' in the Makin', featured three Waters/Lonergan compositions and a piano duet in which Ben trades licks with Jools Holland.
I combined bass playing and road managing duties on Muddy Waters' son Big Bill Morganfield's first three U.K. tours, and I was (with Ben Waters) a member of the late Florida bluesman Rock Bottom's U.K. touring band. Rock, whose calling card read “expensive and bad tempered” is sadly missed by all who had the chance to meet him.
I have also been working alongside the erstwhile Stackridge front man Mutter Slater in the band Little Dixie. While paying tribute to the likes of Boz Scaggs, Delbert McClinton, Los Lobos and Keb Mo, the band is mainly a vehicle for Mutter's prodigious writing skills. Mutter and company have worked with Billy Bragg on a series of gigs and media events highlighting the threat to live music posed by the initial draughts of the Public Entertainment Licensing bill.
Since January 2003, I’ve been working with guitarist Paul Hart and USA blues harmonica virtuoso Johnny Mars as part of the 20-plus-piece Barrelhouse Blues Orchestra, featuring a star-studded 8-piece brass section and a string quartet put together by Chas Dickie. After just one live performance, the band was booked for Paul Jones' BBC Radio show, recorded in April 2003. The band's second live concert included guest appearances from ex-John Mayall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and world-renowned saxophonist Andy Sheppard. This was followed by a concert broadcast from the Newcastle Opera House, again for the Paul Jones Show. The Orchestra was the centrepiece for a concert in memory of British jazz/blues legend Dick Heckstall-Smith in March 2005. Guest musicians included guitar virtuoso John Etheridge, sax legends Art Tatum and Andy Sheppard, Chris Jagger, ex- Coliseum guitarist James Litherland and others. Subsequent gigs with the Orchestra gave me the chance to play with former Whitesnake guitarist (and huge Peter Green fan) Bernie Marsden and the erstwhile Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation frontman Victor Brox. It’s a wonderful project to be involved in, and it’s a particular treat for me playing with people that I used to go and see as a kid.
In July 2003, I teamed up again with Robbie McIntosh, Paul Beavis, and piano/accordion legend Geraint Watkins for a gig in south London. This led to a tour of Germany in February 2004, for which the band recorded and mixed a live-as-dammit 10-track CD, ‘Funsbury Park', in one 14-hour session at the wondrous Room With A View studio near Ringwood, Hampshire. It was a limited edition run of 100 copies, specifically for the German tour, and it sold out with two gigs of the tour remaining.
In June 2005 I got a call from Billy Bragg, asking me to put together a band and find a studio to record some songs that had emerged from Billy’s songwriting workshops with cancer sufferers at the Trimar Hospice in Weymouth. This resulted in a session at Mike Hallett’s studio in Weymouth with Billy, singer Helena, Robbie McIntosh, pianist Julie Lewis, drummer Ady Milward and myself, the whole process witnessed by some of the women who wrote the songs with Billy, and captured on film by the Trimar people. The resulting recording was the three-track CD ‘We Laughed’, which was released by Cooking Vinyl records on 31st October 2005. The title track was written by Billy and Maxine Edgington, who wrote the lyrics as a memento for her daughter Jessica in the event of her death.
What happened next was totally unexpected. Billy and Maxine recorded an interview for Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 show, where the single was given an airing. The switchboard lit up with people calling in to say how the story and the song had moved them. The national newspapers then picked up on the story, and ‘We Laughed’ eventually peaked at no.11 in the national charts. We played the song live for BBC1’s New Year Live programme just after midnight on 1st January 2006 on a balcony at Somerset House in London to an estimated audience of over 10 million viewers.
Maxine finally lost her battle with cancer in September 2006.
The latest project, the Mutter Slater Band, was instigated by Billy Bragg, whose idea it was to strip down the ‘pub rock’ feel of Little Dixie into a format that would allow Mutter’s songwriting skills and his blue-eyed soul vocals to shine through. It’s Mutter, Ady and yours truly, and we’ve begun recordings for that line-up’s début CD under Billy’s supervision. Initial responses are very positive.
I continue to gig regularly with the Mutter Slater Band, the Barrelhouse Blues Orchestra, Back Street Blues and others, alongside lecturing in music at Weymouth College of Music and writing for the Dorset Echo.
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