Who I am and what I do....

hollow hill music

 



Welcome to Hollow Hill Music!

My name is Grahame Hood and I am an acoustic musician, playing guitar, mandolin, banjo and Appalachian Mountain dulcimer.
I buy, sell and repair instruments, and have a longstanding interest in writing about acoustic music in the UK, with a particular leaning towards the "progressive folk" era from c. 1969 to 1972.

I intend to show the instruments I have for sale, offer playing tips, show videos of my own playing and to publish articles and reviews.

I live in Bromley, Kent but was born in Peebles, about twenty miles South of Edinburgh, in Scotland. I started playing guitar at the age of fifteen (1973..!) and had my musical tastes shaken up by the son of my next door neighour lending me the Incredible String Band album 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion, which was like nothing I had ever heard before. I later got a mandolin for £2.50 in a Guru Mahari Ji charity shop for £2.50. I played in a few rock bands around Edinburgh but fell into the folk scene when I moved down to London with his job. I played guitar and mandolin by then but so did everyone else, usually better, so I took up the Appalachian dulcimer, buying  a £28 model from Hobgoblin that I used until recently.   

I went on to play in various acoustic and folk based groups around the South East, including Gilderoy (similar to The Boys of the Lough and featuring Northumbrian Smallpipes) Mooncalfs, The Flying Chaucers, Joe Bazouki & The Missing Puddings and Walking The Witch (not be confused with the later Waking The Witch!), who played folk-based acoustic rock and performed well over 300 gigs around London and the south. More recently I formed a function band in which I played mainly bass, playing in many styles from pop through soul and Motown to jazz standards. 

Me and my dulcimer.

As well as playing music I write about it. In 2008 “Empty Pocket Blues” a full length biography of the Incredible String Band founder Clive Palmer was published and gained universally good reviews, leading to me being asked to research and write numerous CD sleeve notes. I have had pieces published in many mainstream magazines including Folk Roots, Rock & Reel, Shindig, Be Glad (the ISB fanzine) Traditional Music Maker and the American-based Dulcimer Players News as well as editing the Nonsuch Dulcimer Club magazine for three years.

I gratefully accepted early exit from my job in 2014, and I am now available full time to offer one-to-one tuition on guitar, mandolin and dulcimer, being particularly keen to host dulcimer workshops at clubs or festivals. In October 2015 I started Hollow Hill Music to purchase, repair and restore acoustic instruments for sale.