Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Stephen Dale Petit (born 1969) is a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and New Blues musician.
Petit’s blues guitar experience started at a young age in California, and continued through drug addiction, alcoholism, homelessness, and subsequent recovery. He went from a performer in the London Underground to a University lecturer and well-known musician on stage.
In 2009, Petit performed with former Bluesbreakers and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor throughout England. The next year he released his second studio album.
On December 1, 2010, Petit put on a benefit show for the 100 Club which featured special guests Ronnie Wood, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber.
August 2011 saw Petit begin the recording of is next studio album at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, Tennessee with Vance Powell. "Stephen Dale Petit The BBC Sessions" was released Dec 5, 2011.
Early life
Stephen Dale Petit was born on the West Coast of the United States and grew up in Huntington Beach, California which was then a small surf town south of Los Angeles. At the age of seven, he received his first guitar, an acoustic. Petit could often be spotted at Huntington Beach landmark venue, The Golden Bear, which played host to acts such as Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan as well as Blues legends Albert King, B.B. King and John Mayall. Petit's exposure, from a young age, to some of these seminal artists and guitar talents would have a major impact on his personal creative development and future musical career.
Meeting with Albert King and others
As a teenager in Los Angeles, Petit met and was influenced by musician Albert King. He also met and briefly jammed with blues titan B.B. King. These were among the first of what would be many notable associations with musical greats including Eric Clapton and David Gilmour.
Early California tours and early influences
Petit began his musical career at a young age. By his mid-teens he was performing in bars and clubs across California (including The Golden Bear) five nights a week with bands ten years his senior, alongside talents such as Randy Rhoads.
Major early influences to Petit’s musical style include early Twentieth Century Blues pioneers B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King, blues front man Elmore James (also a favourite of George Harrison), Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Tampa Red, Leadbelly and Son House. Petit also cites British Blues pioneers Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies as having influenced his teenage musical sensibilities.
Move to the UK and British blues influences
In the mid 1980’s, inspired by the British blues boom of the 1960s and 1970s, and by the contrast between the UK and his hometown, Petit moved from California to London, England.
Petit believes British blues had as much impact on the genre as that of its African American pioneers. “The British contribution to the blues is equal, in my eyes, to what Robert Johnson did, Blind Lemon Jefferson…all of those guys all the way through to Muddy Waters”.
Petit adds “I think it is a certainty that without the British blues boom the music (blues) would not have anything remotely like the profile it does.”
Early career in the UK
During his initial years in the UK, Petit toured London's Leicester Square and Little Venice in Phil May of the Pretty Thing's “Friends Band”alongside May himself, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Ian Stewart of The Rolling Stones.
During this time Petit became acquainted with, and performed with, Eric Clapton. Petit believes Clapton's influence on guitar and blues is immense. He says Clapton builds “solos like a well written speech".
Busking on the London Underground
In late 2003, Petit began busking intensively on the London Underground as part of the Transport for London Licensed Busking Scheme. (Eric Clapton referred to Petit's busking as “really admirable”.) “Knowing that Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson etc all did it, made what is essentially doing it the hard way feel like it was the only right way to start” says Petit. Petit soon attracted media attention from BBC radio and press and television.
“I know from playing below the Astoria that even death metal heads, goths, punks…and skateboard kids like the Blues. Sometimes the metal kids upstairs would come down and say ‘you’re better than the band we just paid £15 to see,’ that sort of stuff makes an impression on you.” he states.
Later life
In November 2007 Petit embarked on the BLUnivErSity Tour – travelling across the UK to colleges and universities in order to raise awareness of the genre, and to make The Blues more accessible to young people. In December 2008 Guitar & Bass Magazine (one of the UK's biggest and most widely read guitar publications) named Petit's first album Guitararama in its Top 10 Albums of The Year list. Spring 2009 saw Petit touring the UK with former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor as his special guest. On the 26 July 2010, Petit released his second album The Crave which featured guest appearances from: Mick Taylor, Dick Taylor and Max Middleton. Stephen Dale Petit has been featured extensively on national, regional and student radio, including live in-studio sessions & interviews and specially commissioned BBC Radio 2 music sessions.[1][2][3]
Influences and ideology: The New Blues Revolution
"The reason I am on the planet is to play blues guitar. I’m on a mission to spread the word about the blues and about the guitar – especially to young music lovers." - Stephen Dale Petit.
As well as guitar playing, musicology and musical performance, Petit is a spokesperson for the "New Blues Revolution", which he refers to as "more of a campaign than a career move". Petit feels Blues has faded to the background of the British music consciousness, and so he has promoted the New Blues Revolution, which seeks to restore the Blues to the popularity it experienced during the British Blues Boom of the mid 1960s. Petit says about this restoration, "all that matters to me is that it happens, not who does it".
UK tour and BLUnivErSity tour
Petit’s BLUnivErSity Tour offered Blues Masterclass lectures to students at universities across the UK, accompanied by a gig in the same town. Petit began his tour on November 12, 2007 at Guildford Academy of Contemporary Music where he lectured to over 80 students. Petit said of the ACM masterclass: “It’s very fitting that I’m starting my series of talks in the place that produced so many guitar players, such as Eric Clapton. It’s known as the Surrey Delta, like the Mississippi Delta where blues was widely accepted to have originated.”
Petit gave involved lectures on the blues, its history and its legacy from a musicology perspective. Petit said he aimed to expose “raw, deep blues” to a wider audience. “With these masterclasses I get to share my life’s passion in a more interactive setting, explore this fascinating phenomenon that underpins all modern guitar music and therefore most popular music of the last 100 years”
Petit has played several London venues including The Borderline; The Half Moon, Putney; 100 Club, Oxford Street; and he followed up a Liverpool gig at the Cavern Club with a gig at the Zanzibar Club. Petit has also played The HiFi Club, In April 2008, Petit made his fourth return to 100 Club on Oxford Street, headlining with full band.