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there was this song played and it knocked me out. I must have been about ten. I was smitten by
this song and I listened closely afterwards, and she said: “and that was the blues singer, Ray
Charles”.
BiTS: Oh, really.
GS: And that is what made me aware of the blues.
BiTS: Is that when you started to try and play blues?
GS: That’s when I started having an interest in blues and the first album I got was Ray Charles. I

saved up for bloody weeks, got this Ray Charles album, it was an instrumental album, and I was
distraught, but I then came across another album called The Blues Volume 2, and that was the
start. The first track on ‘The Blues Volume 2’, is Buddy Guy and Lowell Fulson singing ‘Reconsider
Baby’ and these are still songs I sing now, but I loved them and they’re classics. That was the start,
that was the start.

BiTS: Did you start trying to learn to play those tunes?
GS: Well, yes, I started to try to learn. I was never focused upon developing my skills as a
guitarist. I was always into playing songs and sometimes, and this is how I developed as a
Eddie Mac Scoundrels at the Blues Club
guitarist, the songs required new chords that I wasn’t aware of and so, but I’ve always been
playing the guitar to accompany my voice, whereas a lot of people play the guitar to try to develop
styles and to try to copy Robert Johnson and blah, blah, blah and the voice is second. With me, the

voice was always first. It was always the song and then hope to accompany myself and that’s why
I’m a wonderful accompanist to myself but I’m not a classic guitarist by any means.
BiTS: You clearly went into higher education in order to become a teacher, at least I imagine you
did. Is that right?
GS: Well, my first job was in a bank and I lasted about a year, which was a failure and probably
the chip that I got on my shoulder as a consequence turned the rest of my life, but I went from

working in the bank to working in a brewery and I worked in a brewery for about five years. I was
a district supervisor and then at that point, I got married and that gave me the opportunity because
my elder brother was a teacher. That gave me the opportunity to
go to college and so I went to college when I was about 23. Started
teaching when I was 26.
BiTS: When you were at college and working in those jobs, did

you actually play guitar or go out with a band or anything?
GS: That’s when the performing started to kick in because I was
heavily involved in the college of education I was at, Sunderland
College of Education, they had a folk club and folk clubs were
hugely formative in terms of how I developed in music, whereas
George Lamb, my lead guitarist in the band, he very quickly got

into a band, electric band and he went to the workman’s clubs and
the nightclubs. He came through a totally different route. I went
through the acoustic route and I’m still hugely interested in roots
music generally. I ran a folk club, with others, for about 12—13
years but it was a folk and blues club. It was when the folk revival
was really kicking in and reaching the provinces. It had been in

London since about 1957—58, by the time it got to Sunderland it
was about 1969—70 and I was involved then. There were folk
clubs and I wanted the format to be much broader than just