Saturday 1 January 2011

In The Key Of Chris

I first started making up songs when I was a lad in Lidipool on the banks of the Mercy; I was always singing... to pass the time on the way to school I would sing to myself and find that I could do it...

Luckily I wasn't sectioned, and soon I got a cheap guitar and started to learn a few chords. At first I was embarrassed at my audacity, though amongst the repertoire of Beatles and Elvis tunes, I wrote my first songs - they had verses and a chorus and sometimes a middle bit.

On Walton Road, in a pub called the Fountains Abbey where my dad was singing (he was a guitar vocalist who did the pubs and clubs of Liverpool and summer seasons in the Isle of Man...), I performed a song called 'It's Only Love I'm After', nothing of any consequence except it had a riff that both pre-dated and was reminiscent of Bryan Adams' 'Run to You'. I can remember getting a cousin and a friend up to sing it with me to assuage the nerves, to a bemused though supportive audience.

There was another song about that time called 'Stood Up' aching with teenage angst and the turmoil that young girls bring to the life of a shy boy. Whilst at a push I could still remember these two songs, they wouldn't feature long as party pieces.

 Though I was always a bit player in the hierarchy of great singers in the family, fortunately, I would get better as a singer, a musician... would go on to record, and would be able to create some decent music in time to come.

A journey that began some years ago, is starting in earnest - or is that Bolton?

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