John Kirkbride is a Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 singer, guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

, songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 and entertainer, currently residing in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Kirkbride plays blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 and jazz standards from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, as well as compositions of his own. His performances are characterized by audience participation and storytelling, especially funny or critical asides and anecdotes, often accompanied by authentic blues music.

Life and career

At the age of eight, Kirkbride emigrated with his family from Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 to Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. He was fascinated by his first guitar and learned to play it by him, without hasenting afraid of anything. He tuned his guitar on only one chord, not realising that the first generation of blues singers in the Mississippi Delta

Mississippi Delta

The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...

 also tuned their guitars on a single chord for playing slide or bottleneck guitar

Slide guitar

Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

 (a technique called open tuning). Only years later would Kirkbride learn about the conventional tuning of a guitar.

Influenced by songwriters like Carole King

Carole King

Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...

, Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

, Randy Newman

Randy Newman

Randall Stuart "Randy" Newman is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist who is known for his mordant pop songs and for film scores....

, Neil Young

Neil Young

Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...

, and Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

, Kirkbride began to compose his own material. He was interested in the dialogue between text and music to this day, and texts, especially those with a critical and political point view, continue to be an important element of his musical style.

Kirkbride served in the British Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 as a fighter pilot (and claims he was shot above Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

, according to his statement). He settled in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in the late 1960s, intending to earn a living from his music. This turned out to be difficult, but his stay in the US gave him an opportunity to improve his technique and musical knowledge.

While in the US, Kirkbride performed with Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

, Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins

Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...

, B.B. King, Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, John Mayall

John Mayall

John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose musical career spans over fifty years...

, Louisiana Red

Louisiana Red

Louisiana Red is an African American blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who has recorded more than 50 albums...

, Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...

, Chuck Leavell

Chuck Leavell

Chuck Leavell is an American pianist and keyboardist, who was a member of The Allman Brothers Band throughout the height of their popularity, a founding member of the jazz-rock combo Sea Level, a frequently-employed session musician, and later, the keyboardist for Eric Clapton and The Rolling...

, Albie Donnelly, and other prominent musicians. During a sojourn in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1976, Kirkbride began to enrich blues songs with melody and harmonics, particularly the compositions of Robert Johnson, whom Kirkbride admires more than any other musician.

Kirkbride moved to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, where he still lives today. He has worked for many years with the German author Hans-Christian Kirsch, whose lectures he has accompanied with classical or celtic music, blues or jazz, according to the programme. He also performs (among others) with the Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n blues harp

Blues harp

The Richter-tuned harmonica, or 10-hole harmonica or blues harp , is the most widely known type of harmonica...

player Ferdl Eichner, with whom he has made numerous records.

Albums

• Tracks
• Magnetic Mugshots of Memorable Moments
• Sourdough, Corn and Hot Biscuits
• Reds and Blues
• 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
• Return Cargo (with Albie Donnelly)
• Sketches
• Lifeline (with Ferdl Eichner) 2009

External links

• http://www.madhouse-augsburg.de/veranstaltungen/archiv/kirkbridge.php
• http://www.folkclub.de/bands/kirkbride/index.html
• Official website
• Kirkbride on youtube.com