BLUE WEAVER
Updated September 2004
Blue can boast more pop success than any other member of the Strawbs, having been screamed at by more teeny-boppers than he would today care to recall. Blue came to London to escape the Cardiff music scene, and ended up in new pop band Amen Corner which effortlessly secured a string of Top 20 hits in the late 60s - "(If Paradise Was) Half As Nice", "Bend Me, Shape Me" amongst others. When it broke up, he stuck with the Corner's lead singer Andy Fairweather-Low in his new vehicle, the eponymous Fairweather. Intended to strike a more serious chord as a progressive albums band, to their surprise the band found themselves with an immediate chart hit "Natural Sinner" taken from their first album Beginning From An End and broke up in some confusion shortly after.
After Wakeman's departure, Blue attended an audition and secured the keyboard slot for Strawbs in time for their epic Grave New World album. Following Wakeman was not a job every keyboard player would relish, but the Strawbs felt they had struck gold with Blue, who was more of a team player than the keyboard icon that Wakeman had become. Blue's contribution continued to develop with Bursting At The Seams, both albums featuring a closing piece co-written by Cousins/Weaver.
Many of the Strawbs' classic tracks - the ones which fans would say "define" the music of the band - feature the trademark mixture of waves of organs, mellotrons and other keyboards, and Blue remains a great fan of the mellotron in particular, and arranged for mellotrons to be provided for the Chiswick 30th Anniversary Concert in 1998.
On the break-up of the band in Summer 1973, however, Blue was left out in the cold, a member in the end of neither faction. However, that left him free to take up sessions work, which in turn led to his involvement with both Mott the Hoople (1973 to 1975) and the Bee Gees (1975-1982). With hindsight, this was all for the best, as this of course was a monstrously successful period for the Bee Gees, with Saturday Night Fever, Main Course, Spirits Having Flown and various other hit albums coming out over the next few years. In America the band equalled The Beatles' record of six consecutive number one records.
He rejoined Strawbs when they reformed in 1983, but his sessions and studio work clashed when the band started fairly regular gigging and recording activity in the later 80s and early 90s, so Chris Parren took over the keyboard slot for the rest of the decade up to around 1992, when, briefly - for the 1993 Silver Jubilee Tour - Don Airey took over. Blue however was back in the squad for the tour with Lindisfarne at the end of 1993.
For many years Blue has run a successful studio in West London. Throughout the period, he has been much in demand for sessions work, having performed with acts too many to name - but from such different branches of the pop world as diverse as Stevie Wonder, the Pet Shop Boys, the Damned and Chicago. He has successfully ventured into the world of commercial writing - jingles, soundtracks to films and videos. He also operates a multi-media production company specialising in many aspects of modern digital music production.
After Chiswick, Blue rejoined the class Bursting plus Brian line-up which toured annually from 1999-2001. His wife became terminally ill in 2000, which forced him to step back from some dates on the 2000 tour, with Adam Wakeman filling in, but he was back in 2001 and again in the all too brief summer 2004 tour of this line-up, Brian's last with the band.