Early Years and Musical Influences
Honeyman-Scott, along with Pretenders bandmates Pete Farndon (bass guitar / vocals) and Martin Chambers (drums / vocals / percussion), came from Hereford, Herefordshire, England, UK. Prior to joining the Pretenders, Honeyman-Scott played in several bands, including a precursor to The Enid with Robert John Godfrey, The Band The Hawks - Kelv Wilson ( Bass Guitar & Vocals), Dave Plowman ( Guitar ), Stan Speak ( drums ). The Hot Band, and The Cheeks (Guitar Player, 1981, Verden Allen Interview, 1999). Fellow members in The Cheeks included Chambers and ex-Mott the Hoople keyboardist Verden Allen, Kelv Wilson ( Bass Guitar - Vocals ). When Honeyman-Scott joined the Pretenders, he was growing vegetables and selling guitars in a music store in Widemarsh Street, Hereford, called Buzz Music.
Honeyman-Scott acknowledged a number of influences on his guitar playing (Guitar Player, 1981). Early musical influences included Cream and the Allman Brothers Band. Later, he was influenced by the lead lines and finger vibrato used by Mick Ralphs of Mott the Hoople. Honeyman-Scott also credited Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello with their "big jangly" Rickenbacker-influenced guitar sound (Guitar Player, 1981). During his tenure with the Pretenders, Dave Edmunds and Billy Bremner from Rockpile were influential, as well as Nils Lofgren and Chris Spedding.
Read more about this topic: James Honeyman-Scott
Famous quotes containing the words early, years, musical and/or influences:
“All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently it’s your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land’s swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe;”
—Henry Holcomb Bennett (1863–1924)
“Sometimes a musical phrase would perfectly sum up
The mood of a moment. One of those lovelorn sonatas
For wind instruments was riding past on a solemn white horse.
Everybody wondered who the new arrival was.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)