John Kirkbride (born 17 February 1946,

Ullapool Ullapool (; gd, Ulapul ) is a village and port located in Northern Scotland. Ullapool has a population of around 1,500 inhabitants. It is located around northwest of Inverness in Ross and Cromarty, Scottish Highlands. Despite its modest size, ...

, Scotland) is a Scottish singer, guitarist, songwriter and entertainer, currently residing in Germany.

Style

Kirkbride's musical style is deeply rooted in the 1920s and 30s inspired by such musicians as

Blind Blake Arthur Blake (1896 – December 1, 1934), known as Blind Blake, was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He is known for recordings he made for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932. Early life Little is known of Blake's life. ...

, Willie McTell and

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

. Later guitarists such as

Doc Watson Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. W ...

Chet Atkins Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music s ...

and

Leon Redbone Leon Redbone (born Dickran Gobalian; August 26, 1949 – May 30, 2019) was a singer-songwriter and musician specializing in jazz, blues, and Tin Pan Alley classics. Recognized by his hat (often a Panama hat), dark sunglasses, and black tie, Red ...

were also an influence. Slide and alternative tunings play a huge role in providing accompaniment to the many many songs he has composed over the years, that is not including of course the many jazz and blues standards played in his own style. His songs are not all recognisable as standard blues. Many of the songs, for example his song ''Gas Tax Blues'', are of a social and critical nature more reminiscent of

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

Randy Newman Randall Stuart Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist known for his Southern American English, Southern-accented singing style, early Americana (music), Americana-influenced songs (often ...

. His voice that has been compared to a "thousand litres of whisky".

History

John Kirkbride has been touring the world with his music since 1975 and has witnessed many changes in musical fashion, but has himself remained true to the older traditions of acoustic guitar and vocals. Remaining true to his musical direction, and therefore not commercial in outlook, he is nevertheless respected enough to have been invited to play at the 1984

Montreux Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...

. Also John has shared the stage with

Joan Armatrading Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, (, born 9 December 1950) is a Kittitian-English singer-songwriter and guitarist. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received ...

John Mayall John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues singer, musician and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among it ...

, even

Golden Earring Golden Earring (originally known as The Tornados) was a Dutch rock band, founded in 1961 in The Hague as The Golden Earrings. They achieved worldwide fame with their international hit songs "Radar Love" in 1973, which went to number one on th ...

and

Whitesnake Whitesnake are an English hard rock band formed in London in 1978. The group was originally put together as the backing band for singer David Coverdale, who had recently left Deep Purple. Though the band quickly developed into their own entit ...

. He has performed as a duo with

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...

Arlo Guthrie Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...

Alexis Korner Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner (19 April 1928 – 1 January 1984), known professionally as Alexis Korner, was a British blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a founding father of British blues". A major in ...

, Lightning Hopkins,

Bert Jansch Herbert Jansch (3 November 1943 – 5 October 2011) was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s as an acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter ...

Chuck Leavell Charles Alfred Leavell (born April 28, 1952) is an American musician. A member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the pri ...

and

Louisiana Red Iverson Minter (March 23, 1932 – February 25, 2012), known as Louisiana Red, was an American blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who recorded more than 50 albums. He was best known for his song "Sweet Blood Call". Biography Born ...

and a notable session with

Hank Marvin Hank Brian Marvin (born Brian Robson Rankin, 28 October 1941) is an English multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter. He is widely known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows, a group which primarily performed instrumentals and was the ba ...

in the mid-1970s.

Today

, John Kirkbride is still touring, composing and recording. He is also teaching guitar to a new generation of young musicians who are increasingly fascinated by the guitar techniques of yesteryear, where a single guitar, picked fully, could sound like a one-man band.

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 und Eva'' (with Hans-Christian Kirsch) * ''Der Keltische Zauberspiegel'' (with Hans-Christian Kirsch) * ''Riches to Rags'' (with Ferdl Eichner) * ''Changing of the Ways'' (from ''Bluesballaden'' from Hans-Christian Kirsch) * ''Return Cargo'' (with Albie Donnelly) * ''Sketches Out of the Box'' * ''Lifeline'' (with Ferdl Eichner) 2009 * ''The Gambler'' (with Andreas Schirneck) 2013

References

External links

* *
John Kirkbride
o
FolkClub.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkbride, John Scottish male guitarists Living people 1946 births Slide guitarists British blues guitarists