Tony Hunter

I was born in Liverpool many years ago but with having no interest at all in football I was asked to leave at an early age, growing up in Sunderland. 

I didn’t have an interest in playing until I was 14 years old, the intense interest in listening to music has always been there. It wasn’t until I saw an advert for a stylophone by an Australian artist that we aren’t allowed to talk about now, that I thought now that looks like fun, so asked for one for Xmas. My incredibly supportive parents, my Dad having played trumpet in the resident band at the Liverpool Locarno, decided that if I was going to play something, they could do better than that, so invested in a single manual Lowrey electric organ. That was moment that was to change my life and ignite a passion that has been there for all of these years.  

I took lessons from a teacher called Mr Lewis, an inspiring and forward-thinking educator who didn’t just make me play scales and outdated music hashed out by the majority of music teachers. Mr Lewis pushed me towards listening to more music as well as playing it and asked me to tell him what I liked so he could adjust his teaching to suit my enjoyment and my aspirations. This period led to some learning success and within a short period of time my music theory was starting to develop along with some dexterity in my fingers. Encouraged by my keenness and at the rate of my progress my parents, were helping me to look for a keyboard with a pedalboard so I could learn to play the bass notes as well as the chords and melody. At the time a lot of the decent instruments were just too expensive so pressed on with what I had. Oddly, my parents won £1000 in one of the original lotteries. Incredibly, rather than spend the money wisely, they decided to invest in a high-end electric organ for me – a Yamaha DK40B if I remember correctly. This was a 3 manual beast with cutting edge technology at the time. I remember Mr Lewis seeing it for the first time when he next visited. “Now we’re talking” he said. “Let’s see what we can get out of this monster”.  The teacher of one of my friends studying piano had him playing all of the old classics and old standards – bit of Mozart, bit of Over the Rainbow etc. and nothing else. All very pleasant but there was another side to listening and playing music. “Have you ever heard of a band called Emerson, Lake and Palmer?” he asked. I hadn’t but as he took an LP out of his music case and asked if he could borrow our hi-fi, that was another life changing moment.  

As the sheet music was not available for ELP at the time Mr Lewis spent hours over the next week to scribe Fanfare for the Common Man for me to play. He loaned me many other records to listen to, to see if there was anything else I would like to tackle, including Manfred Mann and Booker T and the MG’s  - Green Onions was a staple of my practice sessions for many years. 

As things were going pretty well and I was still practicing 3-4 hours each day we decided that it might be a good idea to take some music exams. There was a problem. In those days the music examination boards were pretty snooty and didn’t recognise the organ as a ‘proper’ instrument. This meant that any exams I did had to be completed on a church pipe organ. Now there was a challenge. Firstly, as the pipe organs and associated music required playing a full pedal board with both feet playing different notes and melodies -something I’d never have believed was so difficult. Secondly, only churches tend to have pipe organs and I have always been about as atheist as you can get. Each church I visited with an offer to help with the ‘roof fund’ was generally greeted with a “Haven’t seen you in our congregation before”.  It wasn’t until I came across a fine chap that didn’t care about my religious beliefs, just that I was willing to help care and cherish the pipe organ in his church.  

I reached the stage to where I was now working in working men’s clubs, supporting the artistes, the comedians and oddly, the Sunday strippers. I think I was 16 at this point and working in the Vaux Social club in Sunderland. I must have been cheap for them although the money was great for me. It was also the first time I’d seen a scantily clad lady pee into the sink in the dressing room, or even a scantily clad lady at all. 

The best thing about this sort of venue was starting to see live bands. Actual groups of musicians playing together - with various levels of success. What an experience, something I’d never seen before, outside of the ‘famous’ bands at the Sunderland Empire and Newastle City Hall 

The skill level of these guys, that you could actually get close to and even speak to afterwards, was generally phenomenal. Every band I saw I was impressed with. It was an honour one night for a band to ask me to fill in for their keyboard player who had left. They had the chord sheets, so I agreed. That was another turning point for me – wow, was that fun. We were all of the standard that we could react to each other’s playing and jam around with some songs.   

I had been writing my own music for a while so had loads of ideas. I invested in some basic keyboards, a Roland SH-09 synthesizer and a Roland RS-09 string machine and a Soundmaster SRT-88 programmable drum machine. I played a few gigs but couldn’t get the sound I was after. I decided to form a band to play our own music, taking on a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer, the band was called Fear of the Dark. We played a few gigs and were relatively well received at Dingwall’s in Newcastle and Le Metro club in Washington. We did go into a studio and record a few songs – the songs are on the website demo section. 

At this point I had faired pretty badly at school, failing most of my exams with the view that I was earning more than a lot of people with a full-time job – who needed to study? After much soul searching and long discussions with my Dad and a number of professional musicians (people who were on the dole but played music on the side!) I finally agreed it may be prudent to have a backup plan.  After doing some resits, I was offered a position at Teesside University. The course was Computing Technology, not IT, but designing computer systems and programming them. It was a new course that was being set up to take advantage of new emerging technology. As if it was a sign, I used to buy a magazine called electronic musician. There was an article in there about new technology and how it was going to affect the world of electronic music. Well, how could I turn that down? 

Two years in Teesside would be interesting. I’d decided to disband my band and concentrate on college for a time. I shared a house with Mick from Sunderland and Mark from Hull. Two thoroughly nice folks who helped make the time very pleasant. So, one evening whilst out having a couple of drinks, as students do, I overheard a man talking about how their organist had retired at his normal club and they were distraught because they count find another one. I slipped away to find out some more details and applied for the job. Knowing how desperate they were meant I could push my luck a little and up my wages.  As time went on, I was getting stuck into college, trying to forget all the bad habits I had previously learnt but whilst still earning a decent wage. This meant I had some spending power that the other housemates did not have. There was an infamous moment when the two boys had seen me bring in hi-fi’s, a TV, a radio and loads of albums that they asked me where I was getting all the money from – were my parents sending it? No they weren’t. The only conclusion they came to was that I was selling drugs at the college. Being an absolute anti-drug campaigner, and still am, I told them that I was playing the organ at the local working men’s club 2 nights a week and also playing 2 nights a week at the 50-50 old time dancing for the pensioners playing waltzes and foxtrots. Mark said mate, if anybody else asks you, I would say you are selling drugs, that’s a way cooler answer and doesn’t make you look half as weird! 

My weirdness aside, I graduated from college with a decision to make. Do I try and pursue the music career or move to a more regular path within electronics?  The pull of the music was too strong so after some advice with the careers officer at the college I decided to become a full-time musician, become self-employed and sign up for the Governments Enterprise Allowance Scheme which gave you a set figure every two weeks as long as you invested a sum up front and made sure you paid your taxes etc.  

I taught music and played studio sessions through the day and continued with club bands in the North East of England in the evenings. From my newly acquired electronics knowledge I was also earning some cash by repairing equipment for clubs and for musicians – amplifiers and speakers mainly.   

I invested in some new kit at this point to help with getting the 80’s sound that was required from the club band. I bought a Roland Jupiter 6 and a Roland TR-909 drum machine, a Korg EX-800 and Yamaha DX-21. From purely the equipment I owned I was asked to join a showband called Top Secret.  

The money was ok during this time of self-employment, but a bout of flu meant that I was unable to play for 3 weeks. The clubs being absolutely full of cigarette smoke didn’t help a bad chest either. With no sick plan or insurance in place it was a struggle.  

I felt my best option at this stage was to look for a full time ‘proper’ job to allow me to buy a house and move on with my life. The thoughts were that I could still play in the band as that was night times only but I had to stop the lessons and the few studio sessions that I was being employed for. Out of all of the sessions I have played, not a single person or band has gone on to better things, hopefully it wasn’t because of my keyboard playing! I dearly missed the teaching side of music as that was one of my favourite things to do.  

For the teaching, it was all one-to-one lessons in piano, keyboard or organ and so rewarding when students wanted to play and put the work in. There was of course those whose parents wanted them to learn but they had no interest at all. I had to be very strict with those customers and cut the lessons if I couldn’t see any way to inspire or inject some enthusiasm into their lessons. 

During the miners’ strike in the UK in the eighties, a chap called Jack asked me for organ lessons but stated that although he had always wanted to learn, he was doubting whether he would be able to do it due to both his age and the state of his hands. My philosophy has always been that if somebody is trying their best to do something and they are willing to put the work in, then I should try as hard as possible to help them. I sought advice from the local hospital about physiotherapy and got some exercises for the mature student to try as well as practicing the keyboard. This went on for more than 8 months with me seeing a vigour in this man far more than I had seen in many people. One of the proudest moments in my life was when I went to a club to see Jack perform. He played flawlessly for the show and thanked me over the microphone for my months of patience and said how nervous he was and that he didn’t want to let me down – he didn’t. 

I took a permanent role at Newcastle University within the Physics Department working within electronics R&D, meeting some more lifelong friends but still playing in the showband. 

I spent next 5 years playing with the Top Secret showband, honing the skills of both playing and programming sounds and rhythms along with losing any nerves of playing in front of an audience. This was a great experience for me but as the years passed, the idea of playing cover songs for so long did grate with my psyche. 

I took a 4 month contract in the house band at Castles Nightclub at Annfield Plain, just filling in where my main band wasn’t playing. It was at this point I met and supported a few famous folks such as Showaddywaddy, Leo Sayer and my absolutely favourites and heroes the Grumbleweeds. Such lovely folks and a really good night of entertainment. 

There were after this time some personnel issues within the band and I left with the drummer and guitarist to form a new band called Shot in the Dark, joining with a new singer and a new bass player which lasted a couple of years. 

I had started to learn to play the guitar as it was a hell of a lot more portable than the 3 keyboards and amplification that I used to carry round and found that my composing was inspired into a different direction. 

I was still writing music for the electronic genre but now also started writing more singer songwriter type songs with just myself and an acoustic guitar. This was the time I also started busking, particularly in Durham to get some feedback for my songs but also playing a few singalong tracks at the same time.  

Around this time, I had the option to move to a new engineering role and started in the Engineering Department of Welwyn Systems, soon to become TT Electronics.  

A series of events including me becoming a father caused Shot in the Dark to break up. It was maybe time to retire from showbands.  

I concentrated on my family and my composing capabilities for a few years.  

I was on holiday in Liverpool and heard a band playing in one of the pubs. I went in to see what they were like but I was stunned to see it was one guy playing a keyboard and singing. The machine was a Yamaha Tyros Performance Workstation and within a couple of weeks I had purchased one of these keyboards. I had performed quite a few gigs at hotels just playing piano, either their in-house piano or my Roland HP3000 or later on my Roland RD-700.  At the time, there were a few comments about the piano being out of fashion and a little boring for a lot of people. I found that not only could I perform as a ‘Jazz Trio’ by myself, but I could replicate a full band from various Rhythm tracks and some snazzy articulation with my fingers. I was playing in pubs and hotels, even singing a few standards but also started to play festivals and gigs using these keyboards. I would play a few well know tracks but throw in a few compositions of my own from time to time. There is video of me playing a festival in the video section. 

This went on for a couple of years until I got the opportunity to join another band. The Stray Dogs were more of a play for pleasure than for a living sort of band which suited me fine. Lovely folks and again allowed me to make some more lifelong friends. We played mostly charities and did a few weddings. 

TT Electronics closed the Blyth site down and I moved around a few different companies to end up as R&D Manager at Lawson Fuses in Ponteland where I still am today. 

The main difference in my musical aspirations are that for more than 30 years, apart from one recording session with Fear of the Dark, I had not recorded any music at all. I was a live musician and that was that. 

I made the conscious decision to start recording some of my music myself for the first time. Technology had reached the point where you could record decent quality music in your own home, so learned how to use Apple Logic and how to apply various soft synthesizers and plugins to the point where I have now written, recorded, produced and released 7 tracks. 5 instrumental pieces within the electronic genre and one song called Lockdown Day. This was written and recorded during the period where I was furloughed from work for a few weeks. There was also a remixed version of Lockdown Day released which was remixed by one of my best friends, Colin Hird, who also happened to be the bass player in Fear of the Dark and the showband Shot in the Dark. 

These pieces were released in 2019/2020 on iTunes, AppleMusic, Amazon Music, Google Music and a variety of other lesser-known streaming/purchasing providers. I have fully accepted that I will never become rich from my music being streamed due to the ridiculously small amount that artists are paid for streamed music. But, the thrill of seeing people playing your music around the world, in USA, Canada, France , Germany as well as various parts in the UK is such a massive buzz that its difficult to explain. It seems like my whole life has just been practicing for this point in time. 

I have also been involved in numerous collaborations with some very talented friends for different types of live music - Ian Andrews (Guitar, Mandolin & Flute), Kev Stevens (Drummer, but also a skilled multi-instrumentalist) and Malcolm Douglas (Bass player extraordinaire)

Whilst still learning the recording and production process, the target now is to spend some serious time recording some of the music I have composed and some of the songs that I have written over the years. 

Keep an eye out for new tracks being released from this website – www.tonyhuntermusic.co.uk and thank you for reading but most of all thank you for your support in listening to my music…..

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