Chris was one of those lucky/unlucky children who was forced to attend piano lessons as a child; he didn’t appreciate it at the time. He did, though, when he first encountered (and fell in love) with the accordion at a festival in Northampton (at the age of 29). Having not touched an instrument since the age of 14, he went straight out and purchased a top of the range lacquered hard wood 72 bass Hohner.
Within a few weeks he had formed a squeezebox trio, Street Accord, with the two exponents who had set his heart racing at the festival: Deborah Handy and Eleanor Gibb. Their first significant gig was with Adrian Mitchell, Vi Subversa’s Poison Girls and The Riff Raff Poets at Covent Garden Community Centre, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Freedom (Anarchist Quarterly) in 1986. They’d already played on the ‘Digger’s March’ from St George’s Hill in Surrey to Molesworth Airbase in Cambridgeshire, so already had a bit of a following amongst the assembled bohemians. Always elegantly attired, they cut a dash at Glastonbury, WOMAD, Covent Garden, The Queen Elizabeth Hall… to say nothing of the poetry recitals, picket lines, fund raisers, folk clubs and direct actions across the UK and beyond. The band broke up when Chris moved to Nottingham (and Deborah to Dorset) in 1989.
Though immersed in the burgeoning Latin/samba scene in Nottingham, Chris soon became a fan of the Fish. Indeed, he was asked to join the band as early as 1990, but was thrown out after just two weeks because of ‘one of the members didn’t like him’ (was he bitter)! Soon after, he and his old mate Mat Andasun established the carnival arts company Sambawamba, which in turn established samba baterias all over the country and raised several bands locally, notably Zabumba (later Zaboomba) which included (in addition to an alarming number of female bass players and vocalists): Ian Foulds (surdos), Tim Bullock (congas/percussion), Andy Barret (percussion), Mat Andasun (guitar and vocals), Nikki Kemp (flute) and Chris on accordion. Zaboomba played at jazz and world music festivals across the UK until 2002, when Chris left to concentrate on what he laughingly referred to as his ‘fine art career’. This ‘career’ included the Cyril Seaton tribute live art act ‘Cyril Seaton’s Cycle Roots’, which he formed with fellow Oldknows Studio Group fine artist Simon Withers. Mixing folk music with turn-tabling, noise, spoken word and (following the arrival of Gareth Jordan in 2007) film and projection, the outfit has made inroads into the frequently dry and arcane world of live art. As a result of working with playwright Andy Barret (on ‘Upstairs at Da Franko’s’) Chris also struck up a working relationship with operatic diva Angela Warren, with whom he formed Café Con Brio, in 2001. He also directs a street bateria, Drum DCA, with his daughter Emma. So, despite the fact that he tries to give up music every so often, to concentrate on his ‘fine art career’, music won’t give up on him, which is why he agreed to join Wholesome Fish (again) in the Spring of 2008. He soon penned a fishy homage to Cyril Seaton, the ‘Saucy Surrealist from Naughty Nottingham’, which immediately entered the list of Fishy fave raves. The rest, as they say, is history.
Chris’s ambition is to play all members of squeezebox family (not necessarily well)!