Many people in the Northern Ireland music scene know Big Bill Campbell as a gentle giant – a superb jazz guitar player, string arranger for poetry projects and occasional rock/soul band sideman at the un-lime-lit back of the stage and also a very humble, soft-spoken fellow who never pushes himself forward. The latter reason is why many others on the current NI music scene – people who are more prominent in terms of getting publicity and opportunities – have probably never heard of him.

Well, I hope we’ll all hear much more of Bill in due course. He’s just posted a totally unexpected progressive-rock epic, a foretaste of an album-in-progress, I believe, and even those close to him have eyebrows raised in shock and awe.

Bill sings (none of us knew…), plays guitar and keys, with ‘Grinning Phil’ Smith, another jazzer, on bass and drums. The song is Bill’s.

Bill lives in Bangor, on the Ards Penninsula, a Viking stronghold back in the day. I’ve no idea if that has anything to do with it.

I wonder what else he’ll write about? Hitherto, Northern Ireland’s only noteworthy contribution to prog-rock has been Fruupp, in the middle 70s.

Big Bill’s » Continue Reading.