This picture, taken by Ronnie Johnson, is me in the window seat at 7 Riverbank, in September 1986. One year after I arrived in England from South Africa.

Ronnie was one of the first friends I made after I moved to England. I was 25 at this time and was excited to have a recording studio in my own home, having managed to buy my first home (and studio) one year after arriving in the UK as a performing musician.

The first Hampton Court Studio had an 8 track half inch Revox and a 24 channel Studio master mixing console through which I recorded the songs I was writing at that time.  The song I was working on that day, with Ronnie, was called “Stranger“. A song about racist injustice in South Africa  that I had written just days before.

Jumping forward to 2017, the song we were working on when this picture was taken is available for the first time, on a remastered release of the songs I wrote during the 29 years I lived in Riverbank, before the theft of my home in 2015.

The album is called ‘Riverbank Songwriting’, and the song ‘Stranger’ is track 1.

Here is the song on YouTube / iTunes / Spotify

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