Pete Christie Linkedin

Redvers Bailey Promoter Half Moon London

hired Pete as a Musician many times since 2006

“I love Pete Christie. A great man, a great musician and songwriter.” October 12, 2011

Top qualities: Great Results, High Integrity, Creative

* * * *

Tim Heywood, Presenter & Producer, Journalist, Hope FM

“Pete is an entertaining performer, adapting either to an intensely listening audience (which he prefers – who wouldn’t) or to a busy, noisy pub crowd where he is the human jukebox sitting in the corner.
He’s lively and full of anecdotes, while the music can be haunting, engaging, slapstick and /or raucous, depending on mood, atmosphere and environment.
A Pete Christie concert is always memorable, enjoyable and good.” June 8, 2011

* * * *

Xan Phillips, Broadcaster and journalist, Xan Phillips

“It was a pleasure to interview Pete, he was very professional and gave some insightful answers to some tough questions. Of course the main reason to interview him was his songs which can still a room of chattering souls.” June 6, 2011

* * * *

Rebecca Fludgate ACIM, Dolfin Music, Gig guide, unsigned bands, live music event

“Pete Christie is a wonderfully talented acoustic singer/songwriter. I have watched him perform and written a review of his album “Frank”.” June 5, 2011

* * * *

Russell Hill, Music article contributor, Maverick magazine

Playing at The Cellar Bar turned out to be a real treat of a night with the launch of 2 new songs, a 3 hour set with great sound engineering by Andy Razz, a great review from Tim Heywood, Livewire Live Hopefm, some loyal fans and some new friends.

Tim Heywood’s Bournemouth Music Blog

Two Sets of An Evening With…

04 DEC 2011

by Tim Heywood in Chaplins & Cellar Bar Tags: Bournemouth, Music, Pete Christie

My Sunday night started with “An Evening With….Blowing Your Cover” at the church tonight, as we prepare for our launch of this popular church training & equipping course. Afterwards dash over to The Cellar Bar, where Pete Christie is performing. Pete is my favourite performer; I consider him to be one of the absolute best on this circuit. A music session is more like An Evening With…Pete Christie, since the constructed songs are interspersed with both inane banter and insights into Pete’s life.

This starts as I walk in with digs at myself and another notable punter from the scene, before regaling us with a slight on a certain capo from a certain internet supplier. The capo broke 11 months after purchase and he’s heard diddly-squat from the firm. He then splurges into Dancing Diamonds. The next story is 5 minutes about a gig in Swindon, the only kebab shop open there at midnight, and a stool that’s just the right height for him, before he plays a short song from his Skavengers era about trouble, making much use of harmonics on the guitar.

I’ve previously referred to Pete as Magic-Fingered; while there hasn’t been much evidence of this so far, his voice is in fantastic form, as demonstrated by his high wails in staple Lost, which also provides for his first flicker-fingered instrumental break of the night. He next plays his version of Beeswing, which I’ve missed pretty much every other time I’ve seen him play due to walking in late. Its everything I’ve come to expect of Pete’s entertainment, and more…

Along the way, many of his songs are changed and mucked about on the spot; lots of seeming improvisation and spontaneous invention. After one cover he segues into a little instrumental involving the same chord progression, yet thowing in some slide action, even slipping into lap steel mode with the slide for a moment. Good stuff.

Review

Pete Christie
Album: Frank
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 9
Website: http://www.petechristie.co.uk

When I was off on a trip recently I got talking about singer/songwriters and one name that came up was Dorset singer/songwriter, Pete Christie. Not long afterwards a contact through Facebook came up with the same name. It had been a while since I’d seen Pete perform live and it just seemed right to get out “Frank”, his most recent album and spend some time in his company.

Then came the big surprise, I didn’t actually have a copy of “Frank” which means that my knowledge of the works of Pete Christie come through his live performances and the occasional radio show that I’ve caught him on are what’s implanted his songs in my head, not a bad feat when you hear as much as I do.

So I felt it time to remedy that situation, so Pete, here’s a belated review of “Frank” I hope it’s served you well.

Pretty much every time I’ve seen Pete perform it’s just been him and a guitar, occasionally with a bass player in tow, so I wasn’t really expecting a band album. Having got over that shock it was time to give the album a really good listen.

The first thing you notice is the songs, without an iota of doubt it’s the poetry and music that highlight Pete as an outstanding writer. It’s the ability to hold your attention when singing about the everyday that separate the good from the great. It’s turning those observations into words and melodies that capture the imagination where genius lies.

Joining Pete on the album are a host of Dorset performers, including Frankie Milner, Aimee Newsome-Stone and Monique Houraghan, who have performed Pete’s songs over the years. Hearing the songs like this shows just how well they’ve been written, how they can sound so different and still impact you the same.

As Eric Morcombe famously said about notes, ‘I’m getting all the right notes, not necessarily in the right order.’ It’s the same with words, it’s not just what Pete says in his songs, it’s how he says it and more importantly what he doesn’t say.

“Frank” can mean straight forward and honest, not holding back. That sums up the album oh yes and the poetry and the melody. This is an album of songs that matter. Pete Christie is a master of Anglicana.

FRANK album cover

Neil King

Minor 7th Review

May & June Short Takes

Pete Christie “Frank,” 2011

Long live the confessional singer-songwriter.

Pete Christie has seen his fair share of fire and rain, which makes for great art, and even greater albums. Akin to such well respected veteran tunesmiths as Graham Parker, Lloyd Cole, and Ray Davies — Christie sings and plays guitar straight from his broken heart and quizzical mind.

His gift for tethering his romantic ruminations to memorable melodies (and instrumental harmonies) is refreshing, and sound as if they draw inspiration from deep well of the best of the Brill Building and British Invasion.

Sure, “Normal Shade of Blue” and Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet” are bona fide tear-jerkers — but Christie’s delivery somehow lifts the spirit, proving once and for all that misery loves company — in pop music anyway!

Kudos must be afforded to Christie’s musical mates, most notably fretless bassist Pete Wallbridge, who excels with simple, sympathetic accompaniment that supports the singer and the song with style and grace.

Calling in the Band of the Royal British Legion Christchurch to back him on the cinematic “Waiting in the Wings” is the off-the-wall stuff of Brian Wilson and Sir Paul as produced by Sir George Martin.

And Katy Perry should consider covering Christie’s classic rockin’ “Easy Come, Easy Go” (though I would have preferred Petula Clark or Nancy Sinatra back in the day…). Only question is – who is Frank?

© Tom Semioli

What’s on Tom’s iPod this month? Richard Thompson – Dream Attic, Robbie Robertson – How To Become Clairvoyant, Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What

Reviewing the best in non-mainstream acoustic guitar music

Minor 7th (Wikipedia) is an online magazine that reviews non-mainstream acoustic guitar music. It was founded in November 1999 by Alan Fark, who claims to have created the magazine with the goal of “enabling independent or under-recognized acoustic guitarists to receive more wide-spread publicity.”

The website is best known for its reviews of newly-released CDs, but also features its own podcast and free bimonthly CD giveaways.

Minor 7th on Facebook

Note from the editor: Alan Fark

What’s the story behind the name Minor 7th

I settled on Minor 7th because that chord really seems to embody the music I prefer — jazz and fingerstyle.

Making Waves (above) is a fine example of why we recommend that you check out more of Pete Christie’s finely crafted vocals and simplistic finger picking style guitar tunes.  Christie’s latest album is called “Frank” and Pete’s myspace page gives some background to the album and namely why it was written as a tribute to his late mother who suffered from Dementia and called him “Frank”.  The album also features Waiting in the Wings which has become one of the Christie live standard requests.

Pete has guested with Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention – as part of the Peggy and PJ Wright tour-de-force , Nick Harper, Jeff Lang, Glenn Tillbrook, Ezio, Ruby Turner, Derrin Nauendorf, Hugh Cornwell, Bob Brozman, Martin Harley, Ben Montague and performs on occasion with Alex Roberts. In September last year was a special guest of Canadian, Americana acoustic blues and roots sensation Matt Andersen.  Check out the album it’s a great listen. Artist Weblink:  http://www.petechristie.co.uk/

Review Weblink: http://folking.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/pete-christies-latest-album-frank/

• Spread the folking word:
• Email
• Facebook

bh one – Mr Kyps gig review

12.15.2010 · Posted in Gig Reviews by Karl Hayman

Jackie Leven

“…a commanding presence…magnificent night of storytelling, both spoken and musically…”

Pete Christie

“…archetypal singer songwriter…interesting chord voicing and well used vibrato during instrumental sections…”

Hannah Robinson

“…Well crafted songs, lyrics that anyone can relate to and identify with and a voice which bears no comparison…”

photography by Damian Godley

“…heartfelt songs that recall McTell’s glory days…”
Julian Piper, Acoustic Magazine
***

***
Pete Christie album ‘Frank’ review
***
“…deliciously picked guitar lines…”
***
“…eight carefully crafted vignettes…”
***
“It takes a brave man to tackle a song like Dylan’s ‘Not Dark Yet’ – or maybe an optimistic one – so possibly this Dorset singer’s both.”

***

Acoustic Magazine
Review by Julian Piper – issue 47
November 2010

Pete Christie

Promote your Page too

Pete Christie Profile on FreeIndex

Maverick Magazine
The voice of country, folk, bluegrass and roots music
Issue 97 August 2010

Based in Bournemouth and recently released his latest album FRANK, solo artist Pete Christie is one of the finest pickers of an acoustic guitar around. His first band was with The Skavengers in 1979, and it was during that time that they went into the BBC where they managed to blag their way into meeting Mike Reid and John Peel separately and got them to play their music on their shows separately over the course of the next week.

Now performing solo in several gigs a month, I asked him first how did he get into playing the guitar?

“Before my grandmother came back from her holiday when I was about thirteen or fourteen she asked if she could bring something back for me. I said ‘Could you pick me up a guitar?’ We went to get her from the station and she got off the train carrying a bright blue guitar that looked hideous. It was almost unplayable but I found by jamming a piece of Lego under the neck I could play it.”

I wondered why Pete performs solo? “When [The Skavengers] broke up, as all good bands invariably do, I went back to the acoustic guitar and found that I’d grown” Pete told me. “I reckoned I could play better and I thought ‘I just spent ten or so years paying out for vans, for big PA’s, lighting rigs, roadies and all this nonsense’. I thought it was great to strip it down and minimalise everything with just me, a small PA and a very unplugged sound. And then from that was where I got to today.”

Of his last two albums FRANK and LIVE AT MR KYPS, all but three songs have been written by Pete and I queried him about his writing style. “You sit down with a guitar and you noodle about. Just fiddle about with a few ideas in your head and words in your mind or some lyrics you might have jotted down whilst driving in the middle of the night” Pete replied. “You might even have a line in your head and it sticks. When you pick the guitar up, you might take that line and it grows.”

Back in the 1980’s Pete had a songwriting contract and I wondered how that went.

“It was a good deal but unfortunately they wanted me to write songs that they wanted me to write songs about. I kept saying ‘I can’t really do that’. I can’t write a song that says John Loves Mary. I’m not that sort of a songwriter” Pete says enthusiastically.

“Sometimes a song will take years to finish. If I’m not happy I can’t let it go. If I’ve got an ugly rhyme or something that makes me cringe I won’t take the song out [on the road] until it’s finished. Sometimes they take years.”

I wondered why Pete chooses to self release his albums? “I had a bit of a falling out with someone who was producing a song of mine and I said ‘Well, you’re just taking all the feel out of the song’. This is where it suddenly occurred to me that the only person who I wanted to produce my music was me” said Pete in a serious but jovial tone. “I’m not that technically minded but I know what I want to end up with. And if I’ve got a guy in the studio who I can talk to and get on with between us we can find what I’m trying to get. It’s not a commercial thing.”

And his intended reaction from the general public? “I don’t want people to go ‘That’s nice’. I want people to say ‘I hate that’ or ‘that’s the worst song I’ve ever heard. I didn’t like that at all mate’. That to me is what it’s about” Pete told me. “You’ve got to provoke a reaction, not just have the bland, Radio 2 middle of the road opinion. I’m really annoyed about mid stream. If you’re in the middle of a stream, you’re bobbing along with all this other stuff. I want to
be along the edges bumping along the bank. If you’re in the middle of a stream, you’re going along with flow. I want to get on in the edges. Stay out of the middle.”

With FRANK being played on BBC Radio Solent, such as by Sally Taylor and in front of a studio panel on Phil Jackson’s programme, I asked Pete how great this exposure has been for him?

“Absolutely marvellous. I went along to the panel and these guys come on [Phil Jackson’s show] afterwards. I thought ‘They’re going to rip me apart’. And they all, without fail, just zeroed straight in on what I’m all about. Every single one of those guys I owe them a debt of gratitude because I felt at last someone knew what I was going on about. And it made me feel more comfortable with what I’m doing. That’s always important because if everyone is criticising you every day you tend to lose your confidence a bit.”

In his last two albums, Bob Dylan’s Not Dark Yet are in the track listing. How important to Pete has he been?

“Massive. I try and keep away from covers unless they mean something to me. Then I’ll do it but do it my own way. I don’t mean that because I don’t like the original. When I start playing it I’ll begin and see how it turns out. He [Dylan] has that ability to make something so ordinary sound so deep. And he moves me! Some of his stuff is just visual. One of the guys said [on Phil Jackson’s programme] ‘the sign of a good song is you can see what the guy’s singing about. It takes you there’. And that’s what I strive for. Most people say to me ‘I know exactly what you mean. I’ve done that. I’ve been there’. Result.”

And what does the future hold for Pete? “For the next twelve to eighteen months I want to do another album and getting further afield. I’m trying to do South by South West just for the hell of doing it. That’s why I do things. I do it for the hell of it. I’m not looking to be a pop star” mentions Pete passionately. “To get paid to stand up in front of people and make contact with them in a place you’ve never been to in your life and by the end of the night you’ve got a room full of friends can’t get much better than that.”

With regular gigs happening across Southern UK over the next few months, to see Pete in action is a gig to savour and remember. Be sure to check out his websites http://www.petechristie.co.uk and http://www.myspace.com/petechristie where you can see and hear for yourself what a talented guy he is and how lucky we are for having him.

Russell Hill

russelledwardhill@hotmail.co.uk

UKMusicreview

of Pete Christie’s album ‘Frank’

Rating (1-10): 8.0

Pete Christie Review by Elliot Ramsey

Defined by The Troubadour as a ‘powerfully melodic and intelligent, lyrically diverse and thought-provoking singer-songwriter’, great things were to be expected from my first listen of Pete Christie. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed. Residing in the Isle of Purbeck near Bournemouth, Christie is a true ambassador of the genres of Folk and Traditional music, writing honest and sincere lyrics which are lost with many of today’s modern singer songwriters.

Ranging from the stripped back beauty of ‘Just a Song’ to the full electric sound of ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’, Christie provides his listeners with a remarkable array of talent across a spectrum of 9 well crafted compositions. Every song features Christie’s signature simplistic guitar playing which lays the foundations for his plain spoken yet powerful lyrics, accompanied by the Band of the Royal British Legion Christchurch and his own backing band.

Inspired by his late mother who suffered from dementia, Christie speaks on his MySpace page of how she addressed him as ‘Frank’ which gave him the inspiration to produce the album. This is, indeed, evident throughout the entirety of the record; the emotion, integrity and sentiment found in each lyric presents his fondness and love for his mother. Certainly, his unique and mature writing style, met with lyrics which hold such depth, present a modern and somewhat ‘cool’ depiction of folk and traditional music; Christie truly is the epitome of what modern folk artists could only aspire to be.

His sincere arrangement of the Bob Dylan classic ‘Not Dark Yet’ clearly shows his sheer versatility as an artist; his individual interpretation illustrates a whole separate musical dimension to him and demonstrates his capabilities as an exceptional guitar player. Despite the open nature of ‘Frank’, the album proves slightly repetitive due to a lack of variety among songs; his pure simplicity, which often works in his favour, creates at times a rather tedious listen and each song is somewhat reminiscent of the last.

Criticisms aside, there is no doubt that Pete Christie has crafted a sheer masterpiece and his latest album proves to be a frank portrayal of an influential era in his life.