Chris Moreton. Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, Vocals…
Chris is mainly a Bluegrass guitarist and flat-picker of the Doc Watson, Norman Blake school. Also an accomplished finger style player, playing guitar since 1962, aged 8. During the mid 80’s & early 90’s, he performed with his own Bluegrass band, “The Jalapeno Pickers” as lead singer and guitarist, at just about every Bluegrass festival and club throughout the UK with many headline spots. He was widely recognised then as the UK’s foremost exponent of the Flatpick / Bluegrass guitar. Before this, his first Bluegrass band was “The Foggy Bottle Tops” based in Surrey in the early 70’s prior to the advent of the “Edale Bluegrass Festival”. By the late 70’s, as a member of “The Cat’s Cradle String Band” and with his beautiful (and new) Mossman Guitar, he won the Edale guitar players contest for 5 years running before standing down, becoming a contest judge and providing the first ever UK flat-pick guitar workshop.
Chris went on to be a performer/ guitar tutor at the Wadhurst Bluegrass Days, run by Rick, Rosie and Andy Townend. He was guitarist with “Jim Couza and the D’Urberville Ramblers” and can be heard on their album, “Appalachian Beach Party” on Topic. In 1996 he entered Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s first “Acoustic Guitarist of the Year” (A.G.o.t.Y.) competition and still has the exquisitely inlayed guitar he won, with his flat-picked rendition of Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”. This helped to promote his guitar workshop activities and he was booked as the Bluegrass guitar tutor for the first ever fabulous Bluegrass “Sore Fingers Summer School” with Peter Wernick as banjo tutor that year. Chris was a regular tutor there for 7 more years and fondly remembers having some fantastic picking sessions with fellow tutors, David Grier and Tim Stafford during this time.
Since the turn of the century, he’s performed with subsequent fellow A.G.o.t.Y. Terry Lees, was a founder member of Old-time trio “Rattle on the Stove Pipe” with Dave Arthur and Pete Cooper and started honing a solo act working in music bars, Folk Clubs, Bluegrass festivals and continues providing Guitar and even Banjo workshops to this day. Chris still plays his Mossman guitar and has recently re-joined fellow band mates John Boston and Dick Embery, from the “Foggy Bottle Tops”, in “The Boston Boys Bluegrass Band”
Wendy Moreton. Double Bass
Wendy and Chris met in about 2005, a few years after the sad loss of his life partner Norma. They married in 2011. Wendy had a go on an old double bass that Chris had recently restored and under Chris’ guidance, took to it like a duck to water!
“The sound of Wendy’s light touch on the Bass really enhances the sound of the vocals and guitar. It sets me free to play in a way that wouldn’t necessarily work if unaccompanied. Wendy is my soul mate, wonderful companion, a good sport and great fun to work with on stage”. C. M.
The band have produced 3 CDs, two of which are available on their website.
Contact:
Tel: 07791 535476 or 01495 785561
Email: moretonc@gmail.com
Website: chrismoretonmusic.com