I first met Basil in 1976 . He taught me pedal steel guitar . The man is a sheer genius with a beautiful personality . He is a tune smith right to his fingertips . One day I went for my lesson he was writing out a music score for the Northern Ireland youth orchestra . That's how versatile the man is . I would walk 20 miles just to hear him playing one tune. His inauguration into the steel guitar hall of fame in my opinion is long overdue and hopefully it will come soon . I will be sitting on the front row .
Musically yours
Albert Taylor
Northern Ireland.
Basil Henriques Bio.
He is highly experienced as a Musical Arranger-Record producer-Vocal Technique coach.
( Studio and live performance skills )
He has arranged the music, performed as a session musician on various instruments, produced and supervised the vocal
performance, engineered and mixed All of the following :-
Albums :-
Bagatelle (ALL of their original demos for songs such as "Summer in Dublin" etc)
Peggy's Leg ( Album, "Grinilla" )
Philomena Begley ( 8 albums and most of her singles)
Foster & Allen ( 3 albums and 3 singles)
Ray Lynam ( Various albums and singles )
Big Tom ( 16 albums and various singles)
Larry Cuningham ( Various albums, singles and videos)
T.R. Dallas ( Various albums and singles )
Brendan Shine ( Various albums and singles )
Cathy Durkin ( Various albums and singles )
Susan McCann ( Various albums and singles )
John Hogan ( Various albums and singles )
Hank Locklin ( Various albums and singles )
Tony Stevens ( Various albums and singles )
Buddy Boland ( Album )
Sean McGuire ( 2 albums )
Donna Darlene (1 album )
and MANY others in the entertainment business in Ireland
He started playing guitar at eleven years of age and took up Hawaiian guitar at twelve.
His first pedal guitar was a six string gibson 4 pedal electraharp.
At fourteen he was playing in his mother's group "The Blue Hawaiians" and at sixteen formed the "Waikiki Islanders" .
From 1966 to 1968 he was resident at the "Castaways" night club in Birmingham with his group , also playing at the BBC Broad Street studios twice a week recording "Slots" for their national network light music prgs.
He then toured Europe (The American Forces Bases) with his own show which included dancers and a knife throwing/fire dancer from Samoa. (Danny Tigilo)
He signed with EMI Records in 1966 and recorded several albums for them on their prestigious Studio Two Stereo series.
In 1970 he moved to Ireland and was co-founder of a C&W Showband called the Virginians.
At that time Country Music was gathering momentum in Ireland and he was the ONLY pedal steel player working full time pro. He did 99% of the recording sessions for the next twenty years, producing many albums and singles along the way.
He was also in demand by visiting American artists for their TV and road gigs.
He quit session work in 1991 to concentrate on a "Duo" as he had been offered many exclusive hotel residencies.
He is un-trained with respect to formal tuition, but born with music in his soul. As you surely know yourself , it is an intangible thing that really defies description BUT shows in the performance.
He is self taught regarding theory and has used the "Royal Academy" theory books for his studies.
Jazz orientated with his chordal knowledge(Mickey Baker's Jazz Guitar books) and influenced by the thirties through the fifties with his musical taste end styles, He was also lucky to grow up (If he ever did) during the transition from Skiffle to rock
and roll and finally the 60's, all of which formulated his present knowledge and taste.
He has performed as a musician with artistes such as :- Foster and Allen, bandleader with Philomena Begley, Roly Daniels and T.R. Dallas, and a staff musician with for RTE.,
session musician with the top studios in Europe, backing the likes of Gilbert O'Sullivan, Tom Jones, Slim Whitman, Hank Locklin (He also produced two albums of Hank's, recorded during some of his many tours of Ireland), Tammy Wynette ( She always asked for him for her Irish dates and he backed her on her last tour of Ireland and her "Late Late Show" appearance), and MANY more, He also has many solo " Easy Listening " Albums to his credit,
As an instructor for the Irish government agency "FAS" he started courses at local Institutes of Technology for "Steel Guitar" and "Dobro" as well as the RGT various guitar courses, He is an acredited tutor for the "London School of Music".
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Jim Sliff
From: Lawndale California, USA
Posted 2 Nov 2006 5:51 am
Baz is a good friend that I've never met! His talent is unbounded, and I love his dry sense of humor. I got him some repair parts for a Fender a while back, and he paid for them...but I would have done it for free because he's simply a nice guy. He's also gotten me interested a bit in Hawaian Steel, which has certain family and cultural ties that mean quite a bit to parts of my family - native Hawaiian on my mother's side. I can't play uke anymore at Hawaiian festivals because of injury, but with Baz's inspiration I'm in fldegling mode on Hawaiian steel.
Thanks Baz.
Dave Boothroyd
From: Staffordshire Moorlands
Posted 2 Nov 2006 8:22 am
I have met him and you can rest assured that he really is as nice as he seems from his postings. He does have a mischievous sense of humour though, so if you suspect he is winding you up, he just might be!
Two things missing from his bio though- he has recorded music tracks using the Beatles as his backing band! (beat that!)
And he's even more talented than you say, with the enthusiasm of a bouncy teenager!
Cheers Baz
Dave
Al Marcus
From: Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)
Posted 2 Nov 2006 8:22 am
Albert-If you send that resume to Scotty's SGHOF and get him nomimated, they will posibly consider him for the HOF. ..good luck..al
Basil, you gotta chime in about the Beatles playing backup for you, far out!
Petr Vitous
From: Czech Republic
Posted 2 Nov 2006 1:59 pm
First, is there knowing which Hank Locklin albums Basil plays on ?
Second, got an album The Truckin' Queen (1977) by Philomena Begley. That lady fascinates me, she is great, also the band! Is there Basil ? Sounds like Nashville.
After hearing a few of his performances on YouTube I bought all of his CDs, and can tell you that he is one of the greatest entertainers out there. In an earlier topic I recommended that he be nominated for the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and I'm working on getting that done.
Ironically, Basil and I used to live within walking distance of each other in Birmingham, but I only met him through the Forum from 5,000 miles away in California. The Forum really is a marvellous facility.
Watch Basil bounce around on this
basilh
From: United Kingdom
Posted 3 Nov 2006 11:47 am
A tune recorded for EMI at the Abbey Road Studios St John's Wood, in the 1967 and released later on the album "Hawaiian Nights" Columbia Studio Two Stereo" TWO-218
Quite interesting Bass and acoustic guitar parts !!
There must have been a couple of extra players hanging around studio 2 with nothing better to do !!
I think they were waiting to overdub bass and guitar lines on some 'demo' or other.
The mistakes were left in for posterity, just as my lousy intonation wasn't' corrected either. After all, this was recorded for fun and on the same 4-track machine that they used earlier that year on Sgt Pepper.
Love is Blue
[This message was edited by basilh on 03 November 2006 at 11:48 AM.]
Petr Vitous
From: Czech Republic
Posted 4 Nov 2006 2:18 am
Basil nominated for The Hall of Kindness!
By email he gave me a lots of informations bout the Irish music scene I searched for a long time.
Thank you Bas, very helpful.
By the way, the steel work on Philomena Begley recordings is one of the best I ever heard. Proud to call you a friend.
Basil: On your records do you do all the vocals or do other members of the group also sing ? It takes a lot of concentration to play lead on steel and also sing.
