About
Chris Scott first came to public notice with a band named The Royal Assassins. Sharing the same label (Fire) as Chuck Prophet, The Blue Aeroplanes, Pulp and Spacemen 3, an album and single were released. ‘Music Week’ approved mightily and called them “…a riotous explosion of electric voodoo…” but sales were poor and the band split before recording the second album.
After this he was influenced by early Womad festivals, and, due to restrictive aspects of contracts, being unable to sign to or write for anyone else, he worked with rediscovering old Delta Blues, re-interpreting old classics for the 21th century. He self released various albums and worked with Adrian Utley and Clive Deamer before Portishead and Radiohead and Ian Matthews before Kasabian. He toured, both solo and with his band ‘Blind Lemon Beefcake’ in the UK, Western Europe and Canada, and was described by the press as ‘Punk Blues with Attitude’. Side projects included a jamming band mixing hardcore Delta grooves with Brendan Whitmore’s Bebop sax noodling (Jack the Dripper) and a series of recordings with DJ Skoob mixing House beats and loops and editing techniques with classic Delta songs.(unreleased) Whilst touring Canada, he discovered the meaning of Country Music at a birthday party in honour of the Great Great Grandson of The Red Baron and set about evolving a style of music which seamlessly blended roots music from across the world into a cohesive sound.
He then formed Crawdaddy with Steve Payne with this express intention. They went into the studio with Simon Edwards of Kpassa to define the sound and eventually they filmed a trip around the East Coast of the USA, jamming with musicians of all sorts of roots genres there in unusual locations, (all called Bristol) to be transmitted on HTV in 1998 under the title ‘Crawdaddy – Bristol to Bristol’. This generated praise and interest from the likes of Roy Thomas Baker and Geoff Baker (PR for Paul McCartney).Other albums followed including the live acoustic album ‘Hope’ with a Bristol all star line up of Jason Sparks, (Spiro) Claire Mc Taggart, Rick Payne, Paul Huggett and Bill Crampton. He played Glastonbury festival the year the Avalon stage sank. (1997) and supported (amongst others) Albert Lee, John Renbourne, Wilco Johnson, G Love & Special Sauce, Black Roots, Taka Boom, and Dr. Feelgood.
However, family commitments forced a hiatus of over a decade, limiting him to occasional appearances in the South West and a day job, this latter finding him becoming involved in prison education and coaching....
In 2012, he moved to the Somerset countryside and set about picking up the traces of where he left off by recording an album of material to further refine his concept to blend roots musics. Working closely with Max Noble and Ernie Bell, these nine tracks define the concept of ‘Acoustic Soul’ a blend of Folk, Blues, Soul, Country, and Pop.(see music page) Guests include Gerry Rafferty’s guitarist Richard Brunton, Frank Swindells, Crawdaddy bass player Richie Gould and 70’s folk diva Aj Webber. The whole thing was mixed by Grammy nominated Ben Findlay, whose day job is Front of House for Robert Plant, Peter Gabriel and Jeff Beck.
Sadly, shortly after the completion of the recordings, Ernie Bell died. Max set off travelling around Europe and Chris relocated to North Devon, where he now lives.
2018 update Chris was dignosed with inoperable cancer in 2017 and is undergoing treatment right now. However, Chris and Max recorded a new collection of songs in the summer before now entitled 'Weave'. This is now released, as online downloads only, as are 'Acoustic Soul' and 'Hope', a live album from 1995 Please see the 'MUSIC' page for details, and check back regularly for further information. Thank you.
2021 update - My beloved Chris Scott died on 12th December 2019, he had virtually finished a final album which Max Noble finalised with the help of Rik Dowding. It is now mixed and mastered. 'Unfinished Business' will be released sometime in the future.
Nixie James-Scott
2018 update Chris was dignosed with inoperable cancer in 2017 and is undergoing treatment right now. However, Chris and Max recorded a new collection of songs in the summer before now entitled 'Weave'. This is now released, as online downloads only, as are 'Acoustic Soul' and 'Hope', a live album from 1995 Please see the 'MUSIC' page for details, and check back regularly for further information. Thank you.
2021 update - My beloved Chris Scott died on 12th December 2019, he had virtually finished a final album which Max Noble finalised with the help of Rik Dowding. It is now mixed and mastered. 'Unfinished Business' will be released sometime in the future.
Nixie James-Scott