Ibbo

I am Alan Ibbotson; I live up a big hill in a Pennine village not far from the city of Sheffield, England.  I have been playing guitar like Bryan Adams since the summer of 1969. I played acoustic in folk clubs for years, doing songs by Ralph McTell, Mike Chapman, Steve Stills and of course your obligatory blues.  When I got a bit older, I had a lot of fun playing bass guitar with a local blues band until the singer decided he was chart material and went off to international obscurity.   I then teamed up with a local bassist and drummer to form a trio doing simple 50’s Rock n’ roll, and did Northern Working Men's Clubs for a year; you knew they liked you if they let you live.  In 1995, I spotted an unusual ad in the local free paper asking for a guitarist to join a 60’s Mod/90’s covers band. I got a folk-club pal to tag along as vocalist and this setup became Jonny Seven,an all-purpose good-time band with a large and varied repertoire. Over the next 16 years we played hundreds of gigs in front of thousands of people who usually ended up on their feet dancing or on the floor passed-out. Sadly it came to an end after the departure of the irreplaceable singer due to health problems, leaving me floundering around lost for a while.  After trying not very successfully to start a band of my own I was very relieved when I got a message in late 2012 from the bassist of the punk rock band I currently play with, Seventy Seven. 

   The “Music” page contains links to SoundCloud so that you can hear me play solo and with Jonny Seven.  I have written a number of songs over the years and recorded them in my home studio. You can find a link to SoundCloud for these songs on the “Music” page under “Ibbo’s album”(electric guitars, drums, bass and keyboards).

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Last year, I wrote an album of acoustic songs “One Good Summer” and recorded them for Rising Records; click the album cover to see what Rising records has to say about me !