I grew up in Melbourne, wrote poems and went to Art School before doing various jobs and leaving Australia to go and train as an Actor in Paris in 1980.

I’d always wanted to perform and live in other countries.

Whilst doing acting training, I started taking private singing lessons and got hooked straight away.

After Paris and a short stay in London I was asked to come to Cologne to perform in a small “Musik Theater” group. I continued singing lessons in Germany and started writing poetry again, this time as lyrics coupled with melodies that suddenly came out of nowhere.

A theatre performance project I worked on in the eighties had a musician playing various percussion instruments including the Berimbao and the Televis.

This was the start of a great friendship. I began playing these small instruments and some hand drums, singing both my own songs and covers with them as my rhythmic accompaniment where possible.

I continued working in Theatre, TV and Voiceover whilst constantly developing my own music project, singing with some European artists, doing some club gigs.and was connected to Conny’s Studio in the countryside near Cologne.

My first trip to Jamaica was to warm my bones during winter in the late nineties.

A second trip six months later, and six months after that I moved there.

One and a half years in Kingston and two and a half years in the breathtakingly beautiful countryside.

There too I continued with my music and of course learned more from working with various Jamaican musicians and just from the way music comes out at you at any given moment from any and everywhere.

In 2003 I came back to Australia, completely foreign and without any history here as a Singer/Songwriter or Actor.

I met Joe Camilleri a few months later. Joe really caught the essence of what I do musically from our first meeting and expressed interest in producing my album. He eventually brought Ed Bates into the project who also caught the essence of my musical persona as clearly as Joe. What a gift.

They have ensured with great care and intuition that the album remains true to the core of my vocals and percussion, so that it is recognizable when performed stripped back to the core or with a band.  

And now?

Here comes PollyGot Riddim


PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROCCO SANO