Tony's
fond recollections of..
Keith
Christmas
My earliest recollections of Keith are from regular spots at Bunjies. I believe he travelled around on a pink motor scooter in those days - very subtle. Strangely, two songs will stay in my mind forever from that era - 'The Little Temporary Postman' and 'A Supermarket in Haverstock Hill' - neither of them were recorded as far as I know. I always thought the former could be a Christmas hit challenger for Sir Cliff !
Another early memory was of a performance in Beckenham park,a free concert, hence our presence, organised by David Bowie who was just about to release 'Space Oddity' .However,the fondest memories will always be of performances at our school concerts. I suspect because a lot of people present had never seen or heard anything like Keith before especially his guitar version of 'Cat's Squirrel' - a popular blues piece revived at the time also by Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson on the flute.
There were three albums in those days. All excellent in my view - 'Stimulus','Pygmy' and 'Fable of the Wings'.I doubt this would have been a career changing comment at the time so it certainly won't be now but I always thought the more thoughtful,arguably sentimental, songs worked better than Keith's attempts to be a rock star.
You'll have gathered from this website that we are not big in the present, however, Keith clearly is. An album called 'Love Beyond Deals' is first class and well worth seeking out.There is an album by the Keith Christmas Blues Band called 'Weatherman' which I have yet to invest in so make no comment. Keith and his wife Julia also work as a duo,and another solo album is currently in the making.
Keith
was always a favourite, still is - you'll have gathered that!
I would commend his website to you - access via our Links page.
KEITH CHRISTMAS: THE FACTS
Elsewhere on this site are Tony's recollections of Keith. Recollections, especially Tony's often bear little resemblance to the facts. These, therefore, are they.
Keith was born in Wivenhoe, near Colchester in Essex in 1946. He appears to have had a very long university career at Bath University. After six years he graduated in 1971 with BSc in Building Technology. Presumably the length of time was as much to do with pursuing a career in music in parallel.In 1969 his first album 'Stimulus' was released, he played acoustic guitar on David Bowie's first album and appeared at the first Glastonbury Festival.
Through the 70s he produced four more albums, 'Fable Of The Wings', 'Pygmy', 'Brighter Day' and 'Stories From The Human Zoo' while touring with and supporting popular beat combos like The Who, King Crimson, Ten Years After, Frank Zappa, Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart and the Kinks.
In 1972 he was voted one of six favourite international artists by writers of 'Sounds' magazine.
For
most of the 80s he stopped playing - renovating Victorian houses
with his own London based business instead. At the end of the decade
he qualified as a Design Technology teacher and started teaching in
Bristol. Around this time he seems to have resumed regular performing
(probably the long holidays!). He formed a blues band and recorded
the 'Weatherman' CD in 1992, another break was followed by the very
fine 'Love Beyond Deals' CD produced by Ashley Hutchings in 1996.
A
duo with second wife, Julia Howe performed regularly from 1997 to
2000. 2002 saw the completion of a guitar only CD called 'Acoustica'
and a performance at the Bristol Troubadour Reunion concert. There is
talk of the early albums being re-issued on CD - fingers crossed!
In the meantime keep looking at our CD sales section as 'Weatherman' and 'Love Beyond Deals' should appear there very shortly.