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John Findlays new CD: FAIRPLAY is culmination of years playing what comes most natural to him: heart-felt soul-jazz & blues. Somepeople might say R&B.
Singer,song-writer,guitarist John Findlay began his career in Ottawa as a precocious teen guitar whiz who, at the age of 15, packed up his ’60 Strat and hit the road, gigging throughout the southern United States with a southern rock and blues outfit. Raised in a household steeped in jazz, blues and roots music, John’s next U.S. trip took him to the Berklee School of Music in Boston where he acquired the tools to pursue his interest in harmony and composition. Also a skilled pianist, John was a ubiquitous presence in the late ’70s Ottawa club scene: one night providing piano accompaniment for the inimitable trad jazz vocal stylings of “Wild” Ron Burnett, the next spitting bullets on guitar for local proto punkers Vendetta.
In the early ’80s John relocated to Toronto with the Ottawa “supergroup” the Silver Darts, which, along with John on guitar, featured the formidable bassist Scott Alexander (now a prominent Toronto session player), drummer Miche Pouliot (late of k.d. lang, and Bruce Cockburn) and current session musicians vocalist Al van Wart and Matt Horner on keys.
In the 90’s John has kept busy as one of Toronto’s top call session players, writing music for film and television, paying his rent performing in the pits of Rent and lending his services to a diverse range of talent from Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Snooky Prior, Katrina and Katrina & the Waves to Sylvia Tyson, Cindy Church & Marc Jordan.
A life-long devotee of blues,funk, R&B and jazz, John is uniquely able to explore the roots of American music with wit, intensity and flat-out hot playing.
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