For more than forty years, I worked in a part of the music business that most audiences rarely think about. While the artist stood under the lights, I was usually somewhere out front, behind a mixing desk, making sure every voice, guitar, drum, and instrument reached the room properly.
It was not glamorous every night. There were long drives, heavy equipment, difficult venues, unreliable gear, late finishes, strange hotels, missed meals, and moments when everything seemed determined to go wrong at once. Yet I loved it.
I started with little more than curiosity and an old mixing desk. I had no grand career plan. I simply enjoyed music and discovered that I loved making bands sound good. One job led to another, then another, and before long I was working with musicians I had once only known from records.
Over the years, I crossed paths with artists including Ian Hunter, Martha Reeves, Carl Perkins, Nina Simone, The Blues Band, Ray Davies, The Kinks, The Stone Roses, Faith No More, UB40, Simply Red, Bo Diddley, The Yardbirds, Benny Gallagher, Dennis Locorriere and Rod Smarr (Dr.Hook), Strawbs and many more.
Working with famous musicians taught me something important. Once the show is over and the stage lights go out, everyone is human again.
People get tired. People argue. People laugh at ridiculous things. They lose luggage, miss buses, forget instructions, play practical jokes, complain about food, and sometimes create complete chaos. Some become lifelong friends. Others disappear from your life as quickly as they entered it.
The music business also taught me that reputation matters. I never built my career through clever advertising. Most of my work came because somebody had worked with me before and recommended me to somebody else. In that world, being dependable mattered just as much as knowing how to operate the equipment.
I also learned that you cannot control everything.
A venue might not have the equipment it promised. A band might arrive late. A vehicle might break down. Someone might make a mistake that throws the whole schedule into confusion. You learn to stop complaining and find a solution because the audience is still coming through the doors.
Most of all, those years taught me that the stories surrounding the music can be just as memorable as the music itself.
That is why I wrote My Life in the Mix.
It is not simply a book about sound engineering. It is a collection of concerts, friendships, disasters, journeys, famous faces, family moments, ridiculous situations, and memories from a music industry that has changed beyond recognition.
I spent decades standing behind the mixing desk.
Now I am finally telling the stories that happened around it.
Discover My Life in the Mix
If you love live music, backstage stories, British music history, touring memories, and the unpredictable people who make the music business what it is, My Life in the Mix takes you behind the curtain and into a world audiences rarely get to see.
