It was after leaving the Zimbabwe Air Force in June 82 and joining the Omani Airforce that Bud really got seriously into guitar playing. This was due, in no small measure, to the amount of spare time he had on his hands! He had, of course, always had an abiding interest in music and had played in many school boy bands as a drummer.
Drumming remains one of his great passions, the early seed being planted when he was a schoolboy side drummer in the old Salisbury Caledonian Pipe Band.
During his 2 years in Oman, Bud became a very “proficient” guitarist. It was at this stage that he decided to return to Zim at the conclusion of his flying contract, and play music professionally as a one man show. (Guitar, bass pedals, & drum machine.)
True to his word, Bud did this & was very successful from 85 up to 90. In his own words, these ” were wonderful years” during which time he became a household name, as an entertainer, in Zimbabwe. He self-recorded and self-released one of his own compositions, “Run Rhino Run”, in 1988 in aid of the Save the Rhino Fund, and it duly climbed to No. 2 in the Zim charts. This was no small feat for a muso who was not appealing to the mass taste in those years!!
Bud’s music career, however, was interrupted when he decided to return to flying helicopters once more and duly spent four more years flying in Papua
New Guinea and the Gulf.
Typically, Bud didn’t waste these years and wrote a fair amount of original material during this time. He also ventured into sequencer programming. He then recorded the
numbers he had penned, one by one, on his trips back to Zim, at home on a Tascam 8 track. Once “the album” was finished, Bud – with his usual sense of inventiveness! – went to a “pirate” tape copying shops in Dubai and had 1000 copies of his “album” taped onto cassette for U.S.$1 each! He then returned to Zim with his tapes which he sold at gigs. So popular were the tapes that they stocks were quickly exhausted. Unfortunately for Bud, his time in Dubai had ended by that stage and he couldn’t have any further cassettes manufactured – not at the price anyway!
Nevertheless, the demand for his music continued unabated and he duly paid CD Technologies (in Jhb) a visit. This led to his acquiring fresh stock to satisfy the clamouring masses! It is a source of pride with Bud that he has never had to work through a record company and, indeed, has produced all his own music – from start to finish – through his own efforts…and with a little precious help from some close friends.
At the time of posting, Bud was in discussions with a South African record company who had expressed an interest in his work. The outcome of these developments will be posted as they emerge.
Bud’s most recent CD “Bits & Pieces” may be obtained through Final Music.