He made it into Yamba under the radar, as few people in this neck of the woods had even heard of him, let alone experienced any of his “on stage” performances. That has all changed since Glenn’s appearance at the recent Country Music afternoon at the Bowlo.

Raised on a country music diet with his dad (a foundation and long term member of the late Jimmy Little’s band), Glenn and his brother Geoff spent much of their childhood attending weekly music gatherings, and this grounding is now so evident.

On the day of his Yamba appearance Glenn strolled in, guitar over the shoulder, found a seat along the back wall, sat down and just studied the audience. Having learnt enough, he opened the guitar case and takes out an A4 sheet of paper and a black Texta, and compiles a song list to suit the audience as he had read them. A true professional giving a lesson to some of our so called up and coming artists who feel it is their right to inflict on an audience self-penned material, as good as it may be, but of no relevance to their listeners.

O/K he was in front from the word go… flying solo throughout, just him and his guitar. Glenn’s renditions of numbers by Johnny Cash, Johnny Denver, Merle Haggard and others just had the audience asking for more. Vocals, rich, true and vibrant, guitar work, nothing short of amazing, but claims, in that phase of his music he can never be as good as his father! Leaves you wondering just how good he must have been.

There are few better venues than the Bowlo and the sound handled by Les Stewart complemented Glenn’s performance.

Thank you to all concerned and we will do it all again on July 28, only this time with Kiara Rodrigues on stage.

Graeme Routson