iSound

Chris Swinney There were no angels sprinkling stardust and no street celebrations on the day Chris Swinney had his bottom slapped for the very first time. Chris was born into a working class background. His father was a coal miner and his mother was a hard working housewife – the way it was for many back in the late 1950s. Scremerston near Berwick-upon-Tweed, was where it all began but before Chris was two years old, The Blackhill Colliery where his father worked was closing and the Swinney family moved to Shilbottle near Alnwick in Northumberland, England where the coal mine was thriving. Chris spent a lot of his early years listening to the radio – particularly the U.K. charts on BBC Radio 1 and Radio Luxembourg late at night in bed, where he’d sing along to the hits at the top of his voice. Around the age of twelve, Chris took a huge interest in The Beatles and decided that playing guitar was the thing for him. After a short time playing a classical guitar which he struggled...