Biography

Phil Bond was born in Dudley, West Midlands. He started to learn the piano from the age of five years. When he started school, his father bought him a ukulele. "I didn't know the correct tuning says Phil, so Dad tuned the four strings to the key of C and worked out the chords for me. I took it to school which ended with me giving the rest of the kids my first concert, which consisted of me singing and playing 'Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley'."

Phil furthered his education on the piano with the help of his father who was also a piano player and says, "I was lucky to have a father musician, as well as a musically minded mother." At the age of eleven, Phil took up the guitar and decided this was going to be his instrument. "I just wanted to tune the guitar to open C tuning, as I did previously with the ukulele, but Dad wouldn't let me and wanted me to read music, so I had to plough my way through Bert Weedons 'Play In A Day' guitar book. Little did I know that sixteen years later I would be touring the U.K. with Bert, and in 1993 he would be at the launch of our Jazz CD, produced by Mike Batt."

Phil was gigging before he left school at fourteen years old with local bands in the Midlands, which started him working for MECCA. It was in 1971 when Phil went away to work his first summer season in the Isle Of Man. "This taught me a lot" says Phil. "A young kid, just turned eighteen and away from home. You had to be a good sight reader, as in those days there were no backing discs. The artistes relied upon the band to make them sound as good as possible. We backed some of the best artistes of the day, including Jimmy Tarbuck, Frank Ifield, Kenny Lynch, Max Bygraves and Harry Secombe."