I’m Shaun Murray, fingerstyle and classical guitarist, originally from London, now living in Maidstone, Kent. A little about my background: I played guitar for the first time in 1971 when I started secondary school, persuading my parents to pay for lessons which they were able to afford for about a year. Despite decent progress and much enjoyment the lessons sadly had to stop, to the disappointment of not only myself but my tutor, Mr. Jim Stringer.
Recognising some potential, he allowed me to see him outside of school hours for free, so I continued to develop. My chosen listening back then – and I guess my influences – were the melodic acoustic players of the era: James Taylor, Paul Simon, Ralph McTell, Jim Croce, Don McLean and others. Classical guitarist John Williams was receiving plenty of airtime then too, and I became a fan.
In the 1970s ear training and aural perception formed a significant part of classroom music lessons; we were taught to recognise intervals, cadences and the relationships between chords – that aspect of my musical education would turn out to serve me very well indeed. My development continued not by receiving lessons but by doing what we all did back then: listening to records and the radio, working songs out by ear and copying the styles of our heroes.
I continued thus throughout my school years but found myself without inspiration as those acoustic players began to feature less and less on the radio, being replaced by Glam Rock, Pop and then Punk. I heard little on the radio that I wanted to copy. By the age of 16 I’d pretty much stopped playing.
Fast forward twenty years to 1996 and by chance, in the same week, I heard a couple of guitarists who inspired me hugely: Martin Taylor and Richard Smith. Jazz station JFM was playing many of Taylor’s fingerstyle arrangements and Richard Smith happened to be playing live in Kent, which somebody suggested I’d enjoy. I bought a ticket and was hooked. Fortuitously, I also got introduced to a couple of local players who remain close friends to this day. All this happened in the space of a week and I became a guitarist again.
I’d recently been made redundant from my job in the financial services industry so took the opportunity to study music formally: Harmony, Analysis, Counterpoint, all aspects of music and performance, really. I studied for four years, becoming a guitar tutor in local schools in the process. Perhaps inevitably I started playing in bands – performing live for the first time at age 36.
I played in a few local covers bands. Folk outfits too, mainly the Sally Ironmonger Trio. As well as enjoying the acoustic guitar genre I’d always been a lover of Country Music, and was pleased to accept an invitation to join Shameless, a Country Rock band from east Kent. After that band’s demise in 2001 I became a member of the Ray Peters Band where I remained until 2015. I then played with the Hayley Oliver Band until 2017, joining a busy touring Country Music tribute show the year after, leaving in 2023.
My music studies in the ‘90s enabled me to put my playing technique and well-trained ear to good use. I began to arrange popular songs for Classical guitar. There wasn’t much in the way of sheet music for the classically-trained player when I was learning as a schoolboy. There was the Classical repertoire of course and books of Jazz standards. You’d find a Beatles collection maybe, but rarely arrangements of popular songs.
So I arranged a few myself and when YouTube first appeared I took the opportunity of uploading some videos of these. Over sixteen years later I’m still doing that with about 150 uploads to date. My arrangements have been seen over 5 million times and I’m fortunate to have over 13,000 subscribers.
As a solo guitarist, I’ve recorded five studio albums: 'The Entertainer' (2001), 'Nails and Nylon' (2006), 'Capricho' (2007). 'Never Alone' (2015) and 'Theatreland' (2016). My most recent album is a collaboration with singer - and wife as of June 2022 - Hannah van Noort, on an acoustic easy-listening album called 'Meant to Be'. All of these are available as digital downloads in my shop.
And I’m still performing! I play as a solo guitarist at weddings as well as giving concerts in my home county of Kent. I hugely enjoy playing at barn dances, bar gigs, weddings and concerts with ace fiddler Phil Bennett in the duo BarnFire, as well gigs with Hannah in our duo Young and Wise.
I love it passionately and hope to be doing it for many years to come.