Michael Chapman

A real guitar hero of mine even before I got to meet him.

During his life (1941 – 2021) British guitarist Michael released a staggering 58 albums, and he definitely qualifies as a cult hero in my book. Very hard to pin down his style. Jazz definitely, folk, in its widest sense but he picked up influences from his extensive travels, particularly being influenced by American performers but it also went the other way with Michaels influence went much wider, for example, Thurston Moore, cited him as an inspiration in the formation of Sonic Youth
Chapman however evolved his own distinctive style of playing as you’ll hear on the attached videos.

Contemporaries of Michaels were performers like John Martyn, Mick Ronson (who Chapman played with) and Roy Harper and he was much admired by the legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

After his heyday, or at least relative success, Michael never sold shed loads of albums but his influence on others was immense. Both Ryley Walker and Steve Gunn worked with Michael in his later career.

I saw Michael play live several times, the best performance being upstairs at the Union Chapel, probably around 2017 / 2018. The most memorable was in 2016 though. It was a mates 60th birthday and we got Michael to play a house gig for him. I ended up being assistant sound engineer and Michael driver. The stories that he had were brilliant and he was very professional. No alcohol before or during the gig. Once it was over though, he imbibed a fair bit. Great bloke. Great musician

Woefully under represented and under appreciated artist on this website. A great guitar player and songwriter.