Bridie King
'Download CV - 58KB'Bridie King first came to national prominence as a blues and boogie pianist with her recording of Piano Frenzy on The Hippos' album Hippocracy in 1988.
Bridie studied classical piano for 16 years, including 6 years at the NSW Conservatorium of Music, and has a Master’s degree in Music (Music Education) and a Diploma in Music Education. She teaches classical, blues and improvisation on piano at her busy home practice. Bridie also has taught her Blues course at the Sydney Conservatorium’s Open Academy since 2003.
Throughout Bridies's early childhood she was surrounded by black music of the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's through her family's involvement with the Sydney Jazz Club and her father's love of rhythm & blues, gospel and traditional New Orleans Jazz.
In her early twenties she formed the band Mona and the Wail with her sister Sally King, on whose original soul and blues songs the band was centred.
Bridie's work in her next two bands, The Ratbags of Rhythm and The Hippos, saw her touring major at major venues, including a support for Robert Cray at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, making many TV appearances and recording four albums. Piano Frenzy from Hippocracy received radio and TV airplay, including weekly playing for 18 months on Channel 9, and was used in the 1990 Commonwealth Games.
Bridie has attracted many overseas performers to play as her special guests. They include Buddy Miles ( Jimi Hendrix Band), Jimmy Vaughan (Stevie Ray Vaughan and The Thunderbirds), Johnnie Johnson. and members of Dire Straits and Soko Richardson (Tina Turner's Band).
Bridie was invited as special guest to play with Blues guitar legend Albert Collins at Selina's, Coogee.
Albert Collins said of Bridie - "You can play and you cute too".
Jimmy Vaughan made the comment - "you're really serious, ma’m’".
Doug Anderson wrote in a review of of Basement gig in the Sydney Morning Herald - "The night cogged into overdrive with the arrival of Bridie King"
Bridie became a bandleader in 1997 when she formed Bridie and the Boogie Kings. They sustained a 9 year residency at the Bridge Hotel, Rozelle. Band members over the years included celebrated musicians from the Sydney Blues fraternity, most notably outstanding guitar master Ray Beadle (1999 – 2001). Other notables include guitarists Adam Pringle, Darren Jack, Steve Edmonds, and Mitch Grainger; bassists Rowan Lane,
Hal Tupaia, Pat Savina and Vito Portolesi; drummers Declan Kelly, Jim Finn and Jacob Cook; and vocalists, most notably Stephy Marchant (2001 – 2008), also Jerome Smith and Kara Grainger.The Bridge residency was voted in the Top 10 of Sydney gigs in 2002 by The Sunday Telegraph. The band also played at other top Sydney live Blues venues including The Basement, and hotels The Empire, The Unity, and The Baldfaced Stag.
Bridie and the Boogie Kings also played many festivals including those at Manly, Darling harbour, Narooma, Thredbo, Wangaratta, Glebe Street Fair and the Melbourne International Women’s Jazz Festival. A writeup of the 2000 Wangaratta festival in the national paper The Australian claimed that’nothing beat the Blues and Boogie of Bridie King.
In July 1999 Bridie recorded her first CD under her own name, titled My Blues. The CD attracted excellent reviews. John Shand of the Sydney Morning Herald enthused that ‘Bridie oozes vitality’ and awarded the rating of 3 and ½ stars. A reviewer in the Melbourne Sun felt the music of ‘My Blues’ was ‘in the key of joy.’ The CD has sold 2000 copies and is on its second pressing. It has featured on the ABC shows, the Planet and Andrew Ford’s program, and on numerous FM stations, especially on the 2MBSFM program Stormy Monday.
Bridie has also played live many times on radio and TV. In 2003 she accompanied Eric Burden on Bert Newton’s Good Morning Australia and on ABC radio. With the Hippos she performed over 10 times on TV between 1986 - 1988, and under her own name on ABC radio in 2003, 2004 and 2005, and several times on 2MBSFM, most recently in 2007.
From 2002 Bridie King researched and studied for a Music Education Master’s degree in traditional Blues and improvisation teaching methods. She graduated in 2007, and also was awarded a high distinction for her thesis and research into her students’ development in this topic. Since then she has concentrated her efforts into her busy teaching practice at home and her Blues Piano course at the Conservatorium of Sydney. However, music education has always been only half of the story of Bridie’s professional life.
The other half, live performance, took a back seat during her years of Master’s research. But since 2007 she has been applying her formidable skills in band leading and arranging in the production of her new CD ‘Way Back Home’ and in the presentation of quality gigs in Sydney. In April 2008 she was described as ‘a force in the Sydney soul scene’ in Fine Music magazine.
Bridie has a new sound that is full of the richness of the piano and of female harmonies. Bridie’s new output features a more prominent piano and no longer includes guitar. For many years Bridie has been asked to bring the piano forward. Finally her piano playing is unhindered and the full sound and all the colours of the piano can be heard.
Attitudes to presenting vocal material have also changed, the new focus being on harmony and dynamism. In 2008 the introduction of the ‘Harmony Queens’ a vocal trio of exceptional singers, and the invitation to special guest singers, upped the ante at gigs. Audiences have been enthusiastic about the rich harmonies and pure piano playing in Bridie’s performances, two elements sorely missed in much of Australian music.
In 2009 Bridie took the Harmony Queens and the Boogie Kings to several festivals, including Wangaratta Jazz and Blues, and Narooma Blues Festival. The Opera Bar at Sydney Opera House was another gig, and also the Breakfast on the Bridge Event where they played on the back of a vintage truck was a highlight. The ‘Way Back Home’ CD was played on the ABC particularly the track, ‘Piano Players Blues’, and in 2010 ‘Bono’ has been added to the playlist on local ABC music stations nationally. The two Basement shows were exciting gigs played to packed houses, the first one in August was with Lez Karski and friends, this gig was recorded and aired on ABC tv’s ‘Live at The Basement’.
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