His innate musicality allowed him to play a piece on piano or guitar after hearing it just once rehearsals were sometimes fraught because the rest of us had difficulties keeping up with him. We also began to sing because he made it look so easy. His exceptional musicianship was apparent right away, and the instrumental group I had started a year earlier persuaded him to join. John and I met at school when he was 13, and I was 15. How did you originally meet John Wetton and what was he like? I consider myself very lucky to have been growing up during this explosion of popular music.
#Supertramp school kid series
The 60s was a long series of musical revelations, boundaries expanded and crossed, risks taken. Hank and his Strat was the first sensation then came T-Bone Walker, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and The Beatles, playing and singing their own songs then Clapton and Townshend and Peter Green then Hendrix and so on. Richard Palmer-James in 2019 by Antonio De Sarno This was the start of a guitar fetish that I still haven’t quite thrown off.
I was hooked (along with thousands of others, I assume). The sound it made was pretty thrilling too. It wasn’t even immediately clear what sort of instrument this was. The impact of Hank Marvin’s Fiesta Red Stratocaster, possibly the first one seen in Britain, was a shock. In 1959 Cliff Richard and The Shadows began to appear on BBC television. How did you first get in touch with guitar? What in particular fascinated you to begin playing this instrument? “The impact of Hank Marvin’s Fiesta Red Stratocaster, possibly the first one seen in Britain, was a shock.” This was something of a new beginning, and I discovered a whole world of folk, bluegrass, and country songwriting which I had sadly ignored before. I didn’t realise until much later that it’s the emotional background of their music, and sometimes their use of the guitar as shorthand for an entire orchestra, which makes these great artists play the way they do.Ībout 20 years ago I started learning mandolin, and began to concentrate on acoustic and resonator (slide) guitar. (’To name but a few’.) “The 60s was a long series of musical revelations, boundaries expanded and crossed, risks taken.”Īs the 60s continued, Britain was increasingly exposed to Black music, and I tried to emulate the great blues players without really understanding the visceral musical experience that had informed their stylings.
Robert Fripp, the Giles brothers, Greg Lake, Andy Summers, Gordon Haskell, Lee Kerslake, Zoot Money, Al Stewart, and of course John Wetton, all grew up in this area. I come from Bournemouth on England’s south coast. The first tune I played in ensemble with others was ‘FBI’ by The Shadows.
The first tune I could play all the way through was ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’ by the Ramrods. This was an excellent way to learn basic guitar skills, and it undoubtedly kicked off the careers of many, many musicians in my generation. Like other kids at school, I learned to play the instrumental hits by The Shadows, The Ventures, Duane Eddy, et al. Around 1960, when I was 13, I started picking out tunes on a ukelele, and my parents bought me a guitar. I enjoyed the classic pop and dance band music, learning the words if I could, sometimes imagining myself to be the artist – there was no way I could visualise Sinatra, or Bing Crosby, or Nat King Cole, but some of their songs seemed to suggest a world-weary wisdom that was intriguing. Richard Palmer-James: When I was a boy in the 50s, we didn’t have a record-player or any musical instruments at home, but the radio was on all day. What were your first musical involvements? Palmer lives in Munich since the early 1970s and is still very active. He’s best known for being one of the founder members of Supertramp and for writing lyrics for several songs by the progressive rock group King Crimson in the early 1970s. Richard Palmer-James Interview | Supertramp, King Crimson … Legendary musician Richard Palmer-James is credited on more than 500 recordings.