About Me

This sight is brought to you by Peter Webster (email me).

Contacting Me
You can contact me by emailing peter@acousticmusicarchive.com

Peter Webster and Ross Fergusson
I play in a duo with Ross Fergusson. Ross and I play a combination of traditional songs, self-penned numbers and selected covers. You can hear a couple of examples at our MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/peterwebsterandrossferguson) , including a version of 'Lord Franklin' that we've had some really pleasing feedback about. Or see our website (http://www.peterwebster.org.uk/peterandross.html) for the latest news about us.

A Bit About my Background
I grew up in the town of Seaford, on the Sussex Coast (that’s in England, if you’re not from round these parts). After a short-lived flirtation with the Cornet (aged eight or nine I suppose), I took up guitar as a twelve year old. This would be about 1980. My older step-brother was into the Clash, the Stranglers, Bob Marley, Steely Dan and various others – for some reason, Graham Parker and the Rumour spring to mind. I was into all of that stuff too, but also the Jam and the Beatles (heavily). And I had a secret affection for my mother’s ‘Carpenters Greatest Hits’ cassette and her ‘Calamity Jane’ LP – “Oh the Deadwood stage is a-rollin on over the planes…"

These were the days of vinyl. A single cost 70p and was bought from our local record shop – which was above Dunns bookshop in the centre of town. My brother was in with the manageress, who used to let him listen to the latest releases before buying them. He also persuaded her to give him the LP posters that lined the walls of her shop once she had more up to date ones to replace them. A record – particularly an LP - was something to be cherished. I loved the album covers that folded out to give you more artwork or information about the band A record was a tactile thing. You had to be careful how you handled it. It cost a few quid and you didn’t want finger marks on it, as that would affect the sound quality, and you definitely didn’t want scratches. There was a whole ritual to putting on a record. Carefully removing the inner sleeve from the album cover, and then removing the record itself from the inner sleeve. Delicately – only touching the label and not the sacred vinyl itself. Then you placed it on the turntable, caressed it with your record cleaner and gently lifted the stylus onto the track you wanted to play. You turned the volume knob up as far as you thought you could get away with. And then you plunged into a sea of music and wasn’t it just great? The romance of vinyl has now largely disappeared and with it, much of the romance of recorded music has gone too.

My very first experience of being in a band was in 1980 or 81 – I don’t remember which. These were the post-punk days, but only just. From punk we’d inherited the mindset that anybody could form a band and make music. All you needed was a bit of equipment (“A mike and boom in your living room?), some very rudimentary musical training (and I do mean very rudimentary) and the right attitude. We had a prototype song – thankfully it never really got off the drawing board. Anyway, it began with a simulation through the microphone of a nuclear bomb exploding and then we yelled, “We hate the Queen".

The first band I personally formed (I remember the name, but it’s too embarrassing to tell) would have been about 1982. We played a quixotic mixture of blues and sixties pop and the only proper gig we got was supporting the local heavy metal gods (originally named ‘Exocet’, but changed to ‘Exorcist’ after the Falklands war). Unsurprisingly, we were booed off the stage. And I’d like to say to that thug wearing the leather jacket in front row (yes – you know who you are – the one who kept on shouting ‘Bollocks’): I remember you even now, and one day I’m going to get you. The rest of the band members have paid me a small fee to refrain from revealing their identities.

We did have one high point though – which was taking part in our school’s arts contest. We won, but frankly, that’s almost incidental to the story. There were three real triumphs: firstly – we played so loud that we sent the entire audience away with ringing ears, just like a real concert; secondly – we got away with playing Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ (okay, it was an instrumental version, but everybody knew that the lyrics were, ‘We don’t need no education…?); and lastly and best, we were genuine rock gods – at least within the confines of our school - for a week afterwards. It was all downhill from there.

As well as doing the pop thing, I also learned classical guitar. My mother, who was a dancing teacher, had spent a few months during her late teens as a drummer in a local band – she was the gimmick I think. The guitarist was a guy called John Hayes. Later he took up classical guitar, and by the time I went for lessons with him, he was also deeply into flamenco. In fact, John could – and did - play in almost any style you cared to throw at him: pop, jazz, classical, flamenco, latin - whatever. Mostly by ear and always very well. After a couple of years, I was reasonably proficient, and, aside from the paid lessons, John used to invite me around to his house in the evenings to play flamenco and jazz duets with him. John’s big thing was musicality. He was really aware of the dynamics of music and the potential of the guitar in expressing it. So he’d coach me to start a piece quietly and then build up to a crescendo and would get me to try to coax different colours from my guitar at different points in a piece. This kind of approach to music is something that has stuck with me ever since. John’s biggest weakness was his poor sight-reading, and this has become my biggest weakness too.

Musically, if not in other ways, the nineties were full of false starts: three bands that didn’t get very far and didn’t play many shows, a good duet that never got beyond covers, songs that turned out to be half-baked (at best) or no good (at worst). But the twenty-first century has treated me more kindly. Despite the arrival of two little ones, I’m back out playing live and enjoying music, though this time it’s mostly ‘roots’ music (meaning a mixture of folk, blues and other types of mainly acoustic fare). And although nothing – with the exception of death and taxes – is completely certain, I can’t see myself losing the musical bug having come this far.

Songwriting

I have been known to write the ocassional song. One of my own creations, Sing Those Sweet Songs, is posted on the Acoustic Music Archive.

Songwriting with Peter Birkett. Peter is an excellent lyricist with whom I have collaborated on a number of songs. Two of our joint songs appear in the Acoustic Music Archive: Nobody Wants you to die and Remnants. I should point out that whilst Remnants is pretty much a 50-50 split with me writing the music and Peter B. the lyrics, Nobody Wants you to die isn't: Peter B. wrote all of the lyrics and also came up with the original idea for the tune, which I then tweaked.

The Acoustic Music Archive Album
Mainly for the hell of it, I've taken selected tracks from the Acoustic Music Archive and have made them into a proper album. So as well as listening to the low-quality audio on this site, if you want to, you can now buy the album - or just the tracks that you like - and listen to them in high-quality audio. You can download tracks from the Acoustic Music Archive at the iTunes store. Or, if you prefer, you can buy or download the Acoustic Music Archive album from CD Baby. Tracks are also available at Napster.