Bruce Winters home page

On stage with Dave Keen. June 2011

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Herne Bay Ex Servicemens Club September 2011

Me ol' mate Buster Osmond. Drummer in our bands; 'The Satans', 'The Variations' and 'Cascade' Great to see him again!

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Ramsgate WMC. Dec 2010

R........ Old friends;

.Cliff Langtree, drummer (middle) from 'Now n' then' and 'Network' days.

Left: Tim Winters..(No relation!) great bass player and good laugh!

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.The Studio, 2010

****UK Paper Christmas Party night Dec. 2010 ..

Maidstone September 2011

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........................................Dog n Duck, July 2011

Pics: ...c. Teresa Shearing

About what I do...

I have been playing music professionally for the last 18 years,

I sing and play guitar in my favourite social clubs and working men's clubs around the East Kent area.

I have a small recording studio in Sittingbourne where I record and produce all my own backing tracks.

Almost everything you hear on my backing track is me.

I play drums, bass, keyboards and vocal harmonies etc. to enable me to perform with a full sound on stage.

I have been in many bands up until 1995 when I decided to work full time as a solo entertainer.

I'm looking out to play at good clubs and pub restaurant venues..

I have toured and appeared in shows and have supported and worked with such names as:

'The Everly Brothers', (Backed them with my band at the time when on tour.

Supported over the years: 'The Searchers', 'Marmalade', 'The Fortunes', 'The Rocking Berries', 'The Mindbenders', 'The Swinging Blue Jeans', Freddy Garrity,

'Dave Dee -Dozy -Beaky -Mick and Titch', The Andy Bown Set, The Hunters, Sounds Incorporated with Gene Vincent, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

'The Tremolos', 'Brian Poole and Black Cat' and 'Freddie and the Dreamers'. (Oh yea, and shared the stage with my old mate 'Dave Keen',

I sang harmony and played lead guitar with him.) We now work together as a duo occasionally.

I toured in 'The Honeycombs' in the 80's for a while, through an agency. Singing lead vocal and second guitar,

pretending to be an 'original' ..ughh!.

I've also appeared in shows at the 'Old' Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, Kent, with my band NETWORK in a Gala show.

Later on, a reunion show there with my early group 'THE SATANS'.

MISTAKE IN MY LIFE: My group turned down the demo to 'Concrete and Clay'

3 months later it was a top twenty hit for 'Unit4 plus 2'..(Mike Rawlings..if you ever see this, I'm sorry!!)

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My live stage act includes: mainly early rock n' roll of the 50's- (Elvis, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly,

Chuck Berry). 60's- (Searchers, Gerry, Hollies, Shadows, etc). Country rock sounds- (Eagles, Poco, Lone Star,

Alman Brothers Dr Hook). Also a touch of reggae- (Bob/ UB40). And just a bit of Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Quo,

Queen, Gary Moore, Bryan Adams, Supertramp, Poison, Van Morrison and some melodic power ballads.

ON STAGE: I use a top quality Bose L1 Model 2 Professional P.A. system with 2 B1 Bose bass bins and try to simulate the FULL sound of a band. Having always played in a group I would not be happy with anything less.. I record all backing instruments (except lead guitar) in 'real time' in my studio. I play drums, bass and keyboards using 'midi' sequencing PC software (Cubase) and then send it to an external SC-88 Roland Sound Canvas module. From there I record down the instrumental backing track onto my multitrack '64 track' hard drive digital studio. I sing and record harmony vocals (if needed) . The tracks are saved to my hard drive. Then transferred (via a flash pen) to my laptop..

Using media software, I work with backings and mpeg 2 from my laptop......I I use Fender Strats, a Fender Telecaster and Woody guitars, I have recently added a Fender 12 string Strat which gives a change of sound for a few numbers midway through my set. My instruments are played through a Zoom G71ut guitar FX unit, with compression and amp simulation via a mixer DI. . ( 60's tape echo simulation is used for the Shadows instrumentals) . The Bose L1 Mk II PA unit is a new addition to my stage presentation, and consists of a single tower with 36 small 'drivers' that disperse the sound evenly 360 degrees clearly across the whole of the venue. Volume level stays nearly the same wherever you are, on stage or even near the back.. No real need for a monitor, however, I still use a small 150 watt active Beringer cab for fold back on larger stages. My vocals, guitar and backing track control is processed using the new Bose T1 digital mixer that has some very nice studio quality vocal FX's. Top quality sound from Bose, I didn't know what the combined wattage or RMS of the power base and Bass units are, if you ask Bose they just say 'adequate- depending on the venue size, venues up to 45 mtrs' ..I have seen on-line from 3rd party 'techies' that the spec is, Tower: 500 watts (225w a section) plus 250 watt for the bass modules, (125w each) a total of 750watts (That's with TWO bass modules) and no more lugging big heavy speakers around! I've played some large clubs lately and have had more than enough power and volume to spare.

c. Teresa Shearing

My 'old' PA system, before changing to the Bose set up .. and before putting my stage act into the hands of 'Microsoft'!

.....October 2009...

My harmony influences are; 'The Everly Brothers', 'The Byrds', 'The Hollies', 'The Eagles' and 'Smokie'. My early guitar influences were Hank Marvin, Mick Green (Johnny Kidd and the Pirates) and James Burton (Rick Nelsons guitarist). Rock n' roll heroes of mine include Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly. ...My more 'rock' influences are Gary Moore, Vinny Burns, Eagles, Bryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton.

When we were working with Brian Poole at a corporate show for Phizers in Sandwich in the mid 80's, my band 'Now N Then' were offered the job as his backing band to replace 'Black Cat' who at the time were disbanding. We were flattered but declined, because at the time I was a partner in an electrical business and the others all had good regular jobs...(Boring!) Also, I didn't want to be tied down to just one genre, playing only 60's music all night would really...bore me crazy!