Graham Griffith

Biography
Influencers

Graham Griffith first took up conventional guitar at 14, studying classical guitar. In his early 20s he played self taught fiddle in a jug band called the Cosmo Hamfat Entertainers. After seeing virtuoso pedal steel guitarist Kenny Kitching in 1976 he bought his first pedal steel guitar (a Sho-Bud double neck 10 string) and began investigating its complexities.

He later spent 3 months at the end of 1978 with master instrument maker/player Zane Beck as well as playing in a local VFW club in Little Rock, Arkansas. He had adopted Zane's single neck 12 string E13th pedal steel tuning the year before. Zane instilled in Graham a love for jazz tunes, taking his playing beyond the usual country music "bag".

Back in Sydney, after 6 months in the States, Graham became further inspired by Sydney’s Jack Richards, a close friend of famous Australian jazz guitarist George Golla. Jack had played guitar in ABC orchestras, hotels and clubs and taught music until retirement. Jack’s brilliant playing of old standards on his own E6th pedal steel tuning further showed the way. Jack also designed the “Kord King” pedal steel guitar, 100 of which were manufactured in 1948 for Palings (a music store in Sydney). The Powerhouse Museum has one of these.

Since that time Graham has played in many different contexts such as "western swing” (The Baylor Brothers), country (various artists, including Reg Lindsay, Anne Kirkpatrick, Ian B. MacLeod and the Rockabilly Express), country rock (the Wright Brothers) original (Mental as Anything, Fifty Million Beers) jazz (Ian Date, George Washingmachine, Roger Janes and Tom Baker), R&B (Donny Hop & the Kings of Bop) and Hawaiian (Hoola). He has also recorded with various bands and artists including The Welcome Matt, Knievel, Alan Caswell, Dave Steel, Jason Walker & Karl Broadie, WA pop band “Little Birdy” and Sydney band Wicked Beat Sound System.

With his wife Jenny, Graham plays in four local Sydney bands - “Out of Nowhere” which plays retro country, western swing and jazz standards, “Hoola” devoted to Hawaiian and island music mixed with old standards and more recently, “The Hokey Carmichaels” which blends the sound of pedal steel guitar with cornet and tenor sax. Graham also arranges parts for these bands. Graham is a founding member of Sydney originals band “50 Million Beers”. The current musical passion is the latest band The "Jazz West" Combo which is a new string band from members of Out of Nowhere that combines jazz & country repertoire arranged by guitarist Tony Burkys & steel guitarist Graham Griffith. The combo rounds off with rhythm guitarist Jenny Griffith & bassist Pierre Luniere. Think Ernest Tubb, Benny Goodman, Bob Wills, Duke Ellington ... get the picture?