Who am I? That's a question I have always been asking myself: Who am I? Who are you? It will probably be the title of my next album - most of the songs have already been recorded; it just remains for the rest of the mechanism to be put into gear. I will be adding some bass lines and maybe drums to the finished songs, well almost-finished.
I am a composer, singer, guitarist, arranger, bricklayer, father of five, husband of Jeannie, lyricist, poet and a scouser - a scouser is someone who was born in Liverpool (and who therefore has a strange sense of humour, says my wife).
Well, now you know who I am, who are you? Let me know!
People who have influenced my musical journey are: Johnny Slater, Hank Williams, Django Reinhardt and Brian Godding, a wonderful guitar player. Johnny and I go back a long way; we learned to play in the local pubs in our area. We never got paid; we never expected it; we just enjoyed the wonderful thrill of being able to play and invent music. It was very competitive around our area in Kirkdale. It was nothing to have 7 or 8 guitarists playing at once: after a song was finished you'd get "What chord was that in the middle eight?" or "How does that riff go again?" Everyone was pinching ideas - it was great. The main pub was called 'Kitty's' on Stanley Road. The place was packed solid with singers and musicians every Friday, Saturday, Sunday afternoon and Sunday night. As I said, nobody was paid and Kitty must have made a fortune - good luck to her!
Liverpool was and probably still is, a country-music loving city and so Hank Williams was a big influence on me. He was one of the best country singers and composers; his songs were covered by people like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and other top people.
I think my biggest influence was Django Reinhardt, the jazz guitarist. I'm still playing his recordings and still marvelling at his technique and inventiveness and the beautiful melodies he created, pure genius!
I am influenced by everybody I play with! As for my style, I don't know what it is but you can check out the tracks on this site or go to my website: www.jimmydunning.co.uk or to www.deviationrecords.com to buy one of my CDs or download some tracks. By the way, I wrote two 'A' side singles, "Golden Days" for Tom Jones and "Baby We Can't Go Wrong" for "The Cilla Black Show" on television.
If you live near Chichester, West Sussex, I play every Thursday night at the Murrell Arms pub in Barnham.
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