Phil Beer

Beer first began to play fiddle, guitar, and mandolin whilst still at school in Teignmouth, Devon. This passion for acoustic music was especially stirred by the Davey Graham album Folk, Blues & Beyond. He played his first gig when he was fourteen in a band called Retrospect with Richard Entwistle, John Allman and Martin Pike and other musicians, and by the time he was sixteen he was performing regularly. Beer worked with Paul Downes as a duo from 1974 and also in the Arizona Smoke Revue 1980. He was a key member of Johnny Coppin's band (ex-Decameron), and together they collaborated with Nigel Mazlyn Jones on his 1979 Sentinel album. He toured with Mike Oldfield in 1979 and also recorded some tracks at Oldfield's Througham studio. Beer joined The Albion Band in 1984 and stayed with them until 1991, touring extensively at home and abroad, and recording many albums. Show of Hands became a full-time partnership from 1991. Beer continues to do session work, most notably on The Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels album, Steve Harley's Poetic Justice and countless other mainstream and less high-profile projects. Recent projects include two albums for folk fiddle player Jackie Oates, two albums for former Spinners singer Mick Groves, an album for folk musician Jez Lowe, an album for singer-songwriter Tom Palmer and an album for north Devon singer Jenna