"...one
of the UK’s
most staggering & influential acoustic guitarists” - Folk Roots |
| Chris
is one of Britain’s
leading guitarists and a prolific composer and arranger. He began to play the guitar at
the age of four, spent his childhood playing folk music, dabbled in the jazz scene in his
teens and spent many years with a variety of acoustic bands, producing an eclectic body of
recorded material culminating in the release of his two solo albums Chris Newman and Chris
Newman Two. A foray into the commercial music world resulted in a silver disc for
producing The Oldest Swinger in Town – which reached No. 1 in the pop charts
in many countries and No. 4 in the UK
- to which he also composed the tune. One day in 1985 he decided he'd really rather play
interesting music than pursue interesting paycheques and thereafter became immersed in the
traditional music of Ireland and Scotland. His 1998 solo CD Fretwork
was “a stunning & stylistically-varied album, heaving with good tunes, from
one of the UK’s
most staggering & influential acoustic guitarists” - Folk Roots. He has
toured with Irish harper Máire Ní Chathasaigh since
1988. |
| Production
& recording credits in the folk/traditional world include Clive
Carroll’s
Sixth Sense and Christy O'Leary's The Northern Bridge (both Old Bridge
Music), Brendan Power’s New Irish Harmonica (Green Linnet) Steve Tilston
& Maggie Boyle’s Of Moor and Mesa (Green Linnet) and Tom McConville
& Pauline Cato’s By Land and Sea and The Surprise. His playing
is also prominently featured on several albums, among them virtuoso Northumbrian piper
Kathryn Tickell's Common Ground, Shetland fiddler Aly Bain’s Lonely Bird
(both with Danny Thompson), BBC Young Tradition Award-winner Luke
Daniels'
Tarantella and Boys of the Lough’s The Day Dawn. In addition to his
work with Máire, Chris toured until 1997 as a member of Boys of the Lough in North
America,
Sweden,
Finland,
Norway,
Estonia,
Denmark,
China
& Italy.
The Scotsman said of his performance with them on two separate occasions: “...his
fluid, wonderfully assured expansiveness produced a burst of quick-picked harmony here,
some dense, resonant undercurrents there and flashes of snazzy, jazzy syncopation all over
the place...” “Newman’s brilliant grasp of the idiom and swingy,
authoritative playing give... a tremendous rhythmic and dynamic lift...” |
His
book of tunes, tips and technical advice Adventures with a Flatpick was published
by Old Bridge Music in 2001. He is principal guitar tutor to Newcastle University’s
Folk Music degree course and is much in demand at summer schools: within the last couple
of years he has been a guitar tutor at Steve Kaufman’s Flatpicking Kamp in Maryville,
Tennessee, at Milwaukee
Irish Fest Summer School and at Boston College’s
famed Gaelic Roots. |
|
CN
(with hair!) with Diz Disley, Stephane Grappelli, Len Skeat & Denny Wright
Village Pump Folk Club, Trowbridge c.1973 |
|
|
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