|
Highly regarded UK mandolinist Marc Woodward started playing the mandolin in
his early teens and studied with Tommy Jackson, a regular London sessions mandolinist, contemporary of Hugo D'Alton and an
ex member of Troise's Mandoliers. By the age of seventeen, while still at
school, Marc was performing seven nights a week with his musician father, appearing at venues ranging from upmarket places
such as The Connaught Rooms in London, The Grand Hotel in Brighton and Henley Regatta, to nightclubs in Belgium, Dutch Hotels
and Florida Tiki bars!
|
|
| Allen Maslen |
|
|
|
 |
|
Founder member of Affinitée, some 10 years
ago, is Basil Bunelik, one time organist of Billy Ocean's first band. After a couple of years heaving a Hammond Horgan
together around pubs and clubs, Basil was heard to remark "When the going gets tough, the tough get an accordion" And so he came to form Troika in the 1980's performing
Russian and Ukrainian folk music, and later getting a Millenium Award to initiate projects in Jewish Klezmer music. Like most dedicated accordionists, Basil always had
an interest in the French tradition and repertoire, so when an outstanding French singer turned up, Affinitée became Piaffinitée
and their show PIAF COMES TO LIFE was being performed to great acclaim up and down
the country.
| Marc Woodward |
|
In
1986 Marc moved to the South West where he has become an established performer at clubs, art centres, theatres and festivals.
He has worked with such luminaries as John Renbourn and the late Jo Ann Kelly
|
|
While
still in his teens Allen joined Coventry band Easy Street as lead guitarist/keyboard player. He continued his apprenticeship
through his 20s and 30s doing pub rock with Earl Gray And The Tealeaves, dinner jazz at the Cannes Film Festival, poodle-perm
metal with Thud And Blunder and session guitar on The James Whale Show, while playing three nights a week in a Greek restaurant
and, bizzarely, finding time to become an award-winning BBC radio presenter. He also flirted with musical theatre in the mid
1990s, somehow landing the part of Bob Cratchett in a musical version of A Christmas Carol at the RSC Swan Theatre in Stratford.
More recently he is a member of the Colvin Quarmby band.
|
|
