| p:abstract
| - Lee Rogers was brought up in a town on the east coast of Northern Ireland called Carrickfergus, a famous town that boasts a 1000 year old Norman castle, built by John DeCourcy. Born on the 21 February 1977 to Irene and Crawford Rogers, his formative years where spent with his brothers and friends running the streets of his working class estate of terrace houses, built just after the WW2 on the old Sunnylands army camp. His parents were working class people, Crawford worked in the Harland and Wolff shipyard, where the Titanic was built in the early part of the century. His mother was a Part time cleaner in the university. Music was [T] always on at home. His father had his tastes, introducing him to the likes of Van Morrisson and Bruce Springsteen at an early age, his mother loved the music from the 60's. Lee gleaned what he liked from both, though it was when he started high school that he was exposed to different music. It wasn't too long after that he got involved in his first band as a singer. He first picked up a guitar at that time too. "Then it kind of moved on for me, I was being introduced to different genres from different people. I never got into Jazz till way later on, but I loved the big soulful voices of Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye, all those old blues fellas like Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters. I was hearing what James Taylor was doing on an acoustic guitar for the first time, the songs that guys like him where writing. This was quite simply what I wanted to do, but I knew that I would have to put the hours in." Lee found himself in Australia in 2000. He had been writing songs, and even recording them way before then, but it was this new place, these new feelings and things that sparked his fire for writing the songs that we know now. He partly developed his style in the isolation and basic comforts that travelling in Australia had to offer. Lee came back to Belfast, and picked up where he left off. In a haze of writing new songs and playing locally, he was capturing the imagination of audiences, and honing his skills. A slightly spiritual, slightly lost character he was singing with such passion and force, he would be hard to miss, even at low key venues. He soon found himself in a position where he could finance a recording, so he put the ground work together for what would become 'Promise of Day'. A song collective that he prefers now to call a demo. Lee signed to Zenith Cafe Ltd at the beginning of 2005. Decisions where made as to producers, location, studios etc, and in May Lee went down to Genoa, Italy to meet Producer, Marco Canepa and after the period of getting to know each other they started the guides, 15 songs. At the beginning of July, Lee, Paddy Lavin and Trevor Dyer went down to Italy to start the sessions for the 'Drawing Clocks' album. The musicians involved ranged from the three Belfast boys, as well as the great local players who contributed their parts, for example Andrea Maddalone. Gordon McAllister, a guitar veteran, teacher and long time friend and mentor from Belfast also joined Lee in Italy to lay down some great parts. The finished work was stunning. Rogers started playing in and around London, taking in such fantastic flagship venues as The Bedford, The Barfly, Hard Rock Café etc, taking what he already had, his years of working the unforgiving Belfast circuit, to an altogether more captive and new crowd. He would bring the house down on every occasion. He started to get noticed and the offers became bigger and better every time. (en)
|
| rdfs:comment
| - Lee Rogers was brought up in a town on the east coast of Northern Ireland called Carrickfergus, a famous town that boasts a 1000 year old Norman castle, built by John DeCourcy. Born on the 21 February 1977 to Irene and Crawford Rogers, his formative years where spent with his brothers and friends running the streets of his working class estate of terrace houses, built just after the WW2 on the old Sunnylands army camp. His parents were working class people, Crawford worked in the Harland and Wolff shipyard, where the Titanic was built in the early part of the century. (en)
|