Iain Scott has been a professional session guitarist, guitar teacher, composer and producer for over thirty-five years. Starting to play the guitar at the age of 13, his initial guitar playing involved acoustic folk guitar (Simon and Garfunkle, Donovan and the Beatles) before developing an interest in 60’s blues players like Clapton, Peter Green and John Mayall, then classic rock (The Who, Free, Humble Pie, Deep Purple, Zeppelin etc, and later rock-fusion (Nucleus, Colosseum, Focus) and even jazz (Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass etc).
By the time he was 18, Iain was gigging in the pubs and social clubs in various pop covers bands, sitting in with any blues band he could find and playing guitar and occasionally bass in theatre productions around the country. A friend soon recommended a move to South Wales.
Cardiff
It was in Cardiff that Iain found lots of work, by night as a resident guitarist in the nightclubs and by day doing recording sessions and TV work for HTV, BBC Wales and BBC Bristol. This work included playing with pop acts like Bonnie Tyler, The Nolan Sisters and ‘Guys and Dolls’, and backing visiting American artists like Johnny Ray and Gene Pitney.
As well as working in jazz situations with Madeline Bell, Alan Skidmore, Elton Dean and Harry Beckett, Iain also held the guitar chair in the ‘Welsh Jazz Orchestra’.
Around this time, Iain worked in jazz-funk band “The Outsiders” with welsh keyboard wizard Richard Dunn (Sly & Robbie, Van Morrison), the amazing bass player Pino Palladino (The Who, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Paul Young, etc) and the ultimate groove machine Arran Ahmun (John Martyn, Clannad) on drums.
Los Angeles
After playing with dozens of chart topping artists through the 70’s’ it was obvious that the club scene was dying, so Iain relocated to Los Angeles in 1981 to study at Guitar Institute of Technology (L.A.) During this time Iain was pleased to find himself learning from a fantastic bunch of teachers including Robben Ford, Scott Henderson, Steve Trovato, Joe Diorio, Les Wise and Don Mock. After graduating with honours he was asked to join the faculty and taught private guitar lessons and “depped” for the faculty over the next couple of years.
It was during this time that Iain played in the highly arranged three-guitar fusion band “Afterburner” with ace guitarists Frank Gambale (Chick Corea, Billy Cobham, Vital Information, Jean Luc Ponty) and Danny Gilbert (GIT Lecturer, Beach Boys), bass player Oscar Cartayer (Spirogyra, Tania Maria) and drummer Christoff Dechamps (Jean Michel Jarre). This band played at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, had a six-month residency at Donte’s jazz club and was the Mesa Boogie amp demo band playing at trade shows.
Working in LA was very diverse, some highlights for Iain included playing smooth jazz fusion in “The Zone”, rock and roll with Brian Wilson of the Beachboys, doing expensive corporate functions in Filipino pop star Gloria Berja’s Band and working nightclubs in groovy Cuban keyboardist Rolli Guevara’s Band. Not so good was a stint touring motels and “road bars” around southern California in a top 40 band.
London
Iain returned to UK in 1989, returning to Cardiff, and was soon busy doing local jazz gigs by night and setting up private teaching by day. He appeared in many TV productions including a series of Pop Concerts with the Welsh National Opera. He also wrote the music for the stage show “Blow for Bute Street” and performed on stage
An opportunity to move to London and join the Guitar Institute (Institute of Contemporary Music Performance) as a guitar teacher and lecturer was next on the list, Iain spent the next ten years writing course material and developing the “Popular Music” Degree Program for Thames Valley University (TVU).
In the early 90’s Iain played in the London blues band “The Dolphins” that featured with bassist Rob Burns (Nucleus) and drummer Willie Wilson (Pink Floyd).
Later he could be found gigging around town in the “Iain Scott Fusion Band” featuring keyboardist Robin Lumley (David Bowie, Brand X,) guitarist Adam Phillips (Cher, Enrique Englazier), bass player Derrick Mackenzie and drummer Ash Soan (Del Amitri, Squeeze). Guest artists often featured in this band, including Tenor sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith (Colosseum) and drummer Clive Bunker (Jethro Tull).
Magazines
Iain’s involvement in publishing started by writing the “Blues Guitar” column for “The Guitar Magazine” from 1991 to 1999 (a total of 120 issues). More recent work includes the “Blues to Jazz” column for “Guitarist” magazine (Issues 255 – 296).
Books
Iain was asked to contribute to “Guitar Legends” Studio Editions 1995 providing all the music and much of the technical information throughout the book. He later set up a publishing company and produced ‘Electric Blues Guitar,’ East River Publications 1998, a very popular guitar tuition book still used by many guitar teachers.
One of his most recent projects was to record all the music for Paul Scott’s “Need To Know” Bass Book (Collins Publ) in his studio.
Composing
In 2002 Iain achieved an MMus in “Composing for Film and TV” and has since been busy composing and recording ‘production music’ that is used in TV and Cable productions all round the world.
Teaching
Currently Iain is Head of the Guitar Department at ICMP and is constantly writing and updating course materials for the new BMus Degree program validated by University of East London (UEL).
What’s Happening Right Now.
When not busy at school you will find him setting up and fitting out his own 24-track studio “Captain Jim’s” which specialises in analogue and digital recording with an old school approach. It is based around a 70’s Studer 2” tape recorder and a Soundcraft ‘Ghost’ analogue desk.
Up-coming projects include a four-guitar “Fusion Orchestra”, a blues-rock CD, a Jazz/acoustic guitar duo CD, new tuition material on CD and video, ICMP tutor CDs and more, lots more…