“If you can dance to it, I’ll play it”    

  

That slogan has been my motto throughout many years of playing music for people to dance to.  The love of music was originally fostered as a toddler sitting beside my father as he played the organ in the local church and my ability to actually make music evolved from teaching myself to play the piano at about seven years of age, leading in my late teens to be able to bash out singalong tunes in the local pubs for pocket money and free beer! 

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Eventually getting together with a drummer and double bass player we became the Ray Kirk Trio playing swing jazz and the rock ‘n roll music of the early sixties in pubs, village halls and anywhere else we could get into to play and our popularity led to progression to larger venues such as social clubs, community halls and hotels throughout my home county of North Nottinghamshire and sometimes further afield.  Working in full time employment with the local authority dictated that music activities had to be confined to evenings and weekends, thus restricting further progress in the music world.  The Ray Kirk Trio sadly had to disband in the mid sixties when my work involved transferring permanently to Scarborough. 

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My music activities restarted in Yorkshire by playing background piano ‘lounge and dinner music’ in numerous large hotels, mainly in York and Harrogate. Eventually, in order to satisfy a desire to play music for people to dance to, although still in full time employment, acquiring a small hotel with a dance floor enabled the promotion of regular dinner dances which became very popular, attracting custom from a wide local area. At this point, realising that a solo piano was not the best thing to dance to I switched to Yamaha organ, a brand of instrument I have used ever since.  Subsequently, after an offer from a national music agency, selling the hotel and taking early voluntary retirement from full time employment enabled the move into the world of professional musicians, providing music for dancing and general entertainment for audiences of all ages in all types of venues.

 

Working for various major entertainment organisations and large hotel groups throughout the north of England came with many varied demands so far as dancing was concerned. If residents wanted it I had to be able to play it and my old love of swing jazz and rock ‘n roll, to a large extent, gave way to the strict tempos of modern ballroom dancing and the need to thoroughly acquaint myself with sequence dancing.  21 years contracted to the Shearings Holiday Group Organisation regularly playing in three different hotels within the group, made me increasingly keen on expanding and improving my ability to provide strict tempo music for modern ballroom, modern sequence and Latin American dancing in all its forms.  Whilst still contracted to Shearings, I began providing music for weekly afternoon dances at the Whitby Pavilion and 2024 marks my 23rd consecutive season there. Having left Shearings some years ago and no longer interested in travelling around playing other gigs, the Pavilion is now my only playing venue. Having said that, I would willingly give my time and talent so far as I was able to support any event raising money for recognised charities. 

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Having not had any formal music lessons, being unable to read music and also unable to dance myself has never prevented me from being able to provide music in my own style for others to dance to and enjoying seeing the pleasure they derive from it.

 

Now, more than sixty years since those early rock ‘n roll days of the Ray Kirk Trio, playing music for the entertainment and enjoyment of others and still doing it can, I am sure, be regarded as “a life in music” and I am not yet ready to discard my motto  -   “If you can dance to it, I’ll play it”