‘The reason I’m 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’

A quote which says it all, perhaps, because when Stephen Dale Petit talks about the Blues, one can tell he is a man driven by a passion for this most vital genre of music from which modern guitar music is directly descended.

Petit feels it’s his calling to ensure that Blues Guitar receives due credit and this led him to finance, record and release “Guitararama” - an album which tastefully manages both to pay homage to blues guitar greats and to strike a sufficiently appealing new millennium chord with a younger guitar-friendly
market. Unsurprisingly, his music is now widely being described as New Blues.

And something’s clearly working… now into its second year of existence, “Guitararama” has received sufficient critical praise, enthusiastic coverage and media support to encourage the total sell-out of its initial pressing (and prompt a high profile album makeover and repressing) and to propel its creator from
busking on London Underground to taking major London stages by storm.

At times his life seems to have been mysteriously influenced by the Blues… born on a scorching hot, late 60s summer day, somewhere near the Californian desert village of Joshua Tree, baby Stephen was safely delivered by a passing black man who happened to be both a Doctor and enthusiastic Blues
musician!

Stephen’s childhood and formative years were spent in Orange County, California. Although too young to have experienced the Blues-influenced rock delights of The Beatles, Yardbirds, Cream, Hendrix and Zeppelin, these very soon found their way into his consciousness and he was playing his first Gibson Guitar (an SG Junior) aged 7. By his mid teens (still way too young to even be allowed in such places) he was gigging in clubs across California 5 nights a week - with bands comprised of men 10 years his
senior, including legendary Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads. Discovering the works of BB, Freddie and Albert King (the first and last of whom he met and briefly, but memorably, jammed with)

Petit grew to adore early twentieth century blues pioneers Charley Patton, Tampa Red, Son House, Elmore James and Robert Johnson.

His 1980s relocation to London led to chance and hugely beneficial meetings and musical collaborations with the likes of The Clash’s Mick Jones and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and the early 90s saw a support slot for Eric Clapton and new acquaintances with longtime hero Phil May of The Pretty Things
and Keith Richards and Ian Stewart of the Rolling Stones upped Stephen’s game and musical currency considerably. Perhaps no great surprise that a well researched University of Life degree resulted in a change in fortunes and a brush with, and recovery from, alcoholism and drug addiction.

When, in the early new millennium, Transport for London introduced the London Underground busking scheme, Stephen was encouraged to take part in the initiative and, figuring that almost all of his early Blues heroes had used busking as an organic marketing and promotion tool, enthusiastically
welcomed the chance to broaden the Blues appeal to a much wider potential audience. It was an inspired decision. Encouraged by London Underground travellers’ enthusiasm – Petit set about writing songs which would appeal to both the mature, Arts-appreciative and younger, inquisitive ends of the guitar
market. Thus was “Guitararama” conceived and born.
What started as very much a cottage industry record release was to soon take off and become a co-ordinated, marketed, sales and promotion effort as national press, radio and TV media rapidly
picked up on Petit’s uplifting story of riches to rags to recovery and back to riches.

Over the last year, Stephen has been heavily featured on both radio and in the press – including in session for BBC Radio 2’s ‘Paul Jones Show’; BBC TV News (see it by clicking the ‘bbc’ button at
www.guitararama.co.uk); BBC Radio 4 ‘Midweek’ and BBC Radio London’s ‘Breakfast Show’. His UK press and live achievements have been equally encouraging and include a major 6 page August 2007 feature in the UK’s top Blues publication ‘Blues Matters’; he’s been raved about in ‘Classic Rock’ magazine and appeared, as ‘expert guitar pundit’ in top-notch Classic Rock Productions series of TV documentaries on both Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen.

He’s built up a good following on the London live music circuit (Borderline, Half Moon etc…) and even sold out London’s World-famous 100 Club on Good Friday 2007 (a night when half of London goes away for the weekend!). The Guitararama
album made the Top 10 HMV Blues Album Chart in the UK (nestling gorgeously, at one stage, between two Robert Johnson albums!) and i-Tunes Norway and Sweden’s Top 10 Charts.
After a carefully planned slow build promotion and marketing campaign, 333 Records announces the June 9th 2008 release, in completely repackaged Digipak format, of the ‘Guitararama’ album which now features 3 new tracks, a 16 page full colour booklet and an Award-winning rooftop cover portrait by famed street photographer John Gladdy.

Petit describes Guitararama as “an album of music not watered down by bean counters and hand wringing executives worried about taking a risk, lest they lose their jobs. No compromises were made, no punches pulled.

My guiding principle was to honour the music that had floored me throughout my life, to do it justice, to try & create the magic, mystery and excitement I'd heard in that music in my own songs and to capture it in the recordings”.

2008 sees Stephen Dale Petit very much at the vanguard of the New Blues Revolution – standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of The White Stripes, Seasick Steve, The Black Keys and New
Zealand’s The Checks.