Northumberland-born folk guitarist and singer, specialising in traditional and contemporary songs of the north-east of England, in particular those of the coal mining communities.

In the mid 70's he toured the folk clubs with Tom McConville on fiddle playing a mixture of Irish and Scottish dance music and singing mainly traditional songs primarily from their native North East. But after only two years the duo parted company and he teamed up with ex Hedgehog Pie man Stu Luckley, only to break up to pursue individual projects 1984.

Continuing to work as a solo artist he also joined Celtic Band The Rub and the short lived Vin Garbutt Band as singer/keyboard player. In the Autumn of 2006 he teamed up with old mate and ex-Lindisfarne front man Billy Mitchell while April 2010 saw the throwing together of the very first "Pitmen Poets" concert, when he was asked to put a team together for a one-off concert of North Eastern "cultural" material at The Kings Place in London. He recruited old mates Benny Graham and Billy Mitchell and added North East singer/songwriter Jez Lowe to join him. This was a significant development of the earlier show with Benny "How are you off for coals".