[Slowhand] AFL Interview

[John Mills]

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/2007/10/23/andy-s-guitar-heroes-91466-19991172/

Andy's guitar heroes...
Oct 23 2007 by Alison Stokes, South Wales Echo
Cardiff '60s superstar Andy Fairweather-Low has toured with rock's greatest
guitarists. In a career spanning almost four decades the 59-year-old former
Amen Corner singer has played rhythm guitar with everyone from Eric Clapton
to the late George Harrison. Now out on tour on his own, he tells Alison
Stokes about his own guitar heroes...
ERIC CLAPTON
"I remember first seeing him in Cardiff in 1965 when he was playing with
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
"After that I would travel to London to see him playing at the Flamingo Club
and it left a lasting impression.
"I worked with Eric Clapton, pictured below, for 13 years and I never tired
of his playing.
"Every new year he holds a private bash in Woking, near his home, and I play
with him.
"Of all the people who had an influence on me in my formative years as a
guitar player, he was the one. He asked me to join his band for his 1992
Albert Hall gig and the following January we were in the studio recording
Eric's MTV Unplugged album."
GEORGE HARRISON
"I remember getting a phone call when I lived in Beulah Road, Rhiwbina. It
was Eric Clapton's manager asking if I would be available to tour Japan with
George Harrison. The year was 1991.
"I could never get it out of my head that he was a Beatle as the Beatles
were a great influence on me as a teenager. They were the first band who
really started writing their own songs. And I learned to play I Want To Hold
Your Hand on guitar.
"If I had written just one of The Beatles songs I would be a happy man. The
tragedy of George, pictured above, getting stabbed and then having cancer
was that he was such a good man."
ROGER WATERS
"In July I finished the Dark Side of the Moon tour with Roger Waters.
"I first met Roger, inset right, when we toured with Pink Floyd as Amen
Corner. The I bumped into him again in 1983 and started working with him, wh
en he was recording his first solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking.
"On the Dark Side of the Moon tour we were out on the road for 15 months and
we travelled all over the world - India, China, South Africa and South
America, playing the album every night."
KEITH RICHARDS
"I was 16 and in my last year at Llanrumney Secondary Modern School, when
one of my friends persuaded me to go to see the Rolling Stones at Sophia
Gardens.
"They were on a bill with Bern Elliot and the Fenmen and Jet Harris. I
remember they started off with Talking 'Bout You and I knew there and then
that my education was finished and I wanted to be in a band, I wanted to be
like Keith Richards, pictured above.
"After that night I borrowed a friend's guitar and learned a few simple
licks like Chuck Berry used to play and started learning. I'm still
practising even now. I got my first band together The Firebrands and started
playing gigs at clubs like the Kennard Rooms on Albany Road, Cardiff, and
the Valleys."
JIMI HENDRIX
"When we first toured with Amen Corner we were on a bill with The Move, Pink
Floyd, The Nice, The Outer Limits and Heir Apparent and Jimi Hendrix,
pictured right.
"My first introduction was at a sound check. I couldn't believe what I was
hearing.
"After that day I used to go up to see bands play at a club called the
Speakeasy in London. On a couple of occasions Hendrix came to the club and
got up and played.
"I saw him again when he played at Sophia Gardens in 1969.
"Later that year I went to New York with (legendary producer, impresario and
former Stones manager) Andrew Loog Oldham and I ended up backing Hendrix
when he laid down a track called Stone Love Again. It was unbelievable, a
little Welsh kid singing with Hendrix."
Andy Fairweather-Low plays The Point, Cardiff Bay. tomorrow night. Tickets
are £15 and available from the box office on 029 2049 9979. Doors open
7.30pm.
Andy's Corner
Andy grew up in Cardiff, where he attended Llanrumney Secondary School.
He got his first job at Barratt's music shop in Cardiff's Wyndham Arcade,
where he bought his first guitar on HP.
His first band was the Firebrands, followed by the Taff Beats and the Sect
Maniacs.
He formed Amen Corner with his brother-in-law Neil Jones (guitar), Allan
Jones (saxophone), Blue Weaver (keyboards), Mike Smith (tenor saxophone),
Clive Taylor (bass) and Dennis Byron (drums).
Signed to Deram records in 1967, their first hit was Gin House Blues.
Other hits included Bend Me, Shape Me and (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice,
which made it to number one in 1969.
In the '70s Andy launched a solo career with hits Reggae Tune and Wide Eyed
and Legless.
He now lives in Rhiwbina with his wife Barbara, who he married in the early
'70s.
Last year he launched his new solo album, Sweet Soulful Music.