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Artist
Aidan Connell
12+ albums
bluesrhythm and bluesblues rock
about
GRIO is the name of Aidan Connell’s spell-binding debut album, in reference to the poet-musician griot class of west Africa. 27 year old Connell may have grown up in small-town Home Counties England, but his music has a certain mythos of its own. Born into an Irish-Jamaican family Connell was given his first guitar at the age of 11 by his Jewish grandmother, who played a great part in raising him. “It was a Flying V. But I had to spend two years on an acoustic before I was allowed an electric.” Over the first few years of the new century he and a group of likeminded teenage friends immersed themselves in the sounds of a previous generation of suburban musical magicians – The Who, Cream, Led Zeppelin, with dash of Brit-pop added to the mix. But in Aidan’s case, as a young black Briton in a very conservative area (“there were no lynch mobs, no direct racism, but I did feel isolated”), Jimi Hendrix was someone he could immediately relate to. His first band, New Rising Sun, tipped a nod to Jimi in their name, and moved up to London to release a couple of EPs. Learning more of his families Irish heritage with close ties to rock legend Phil Lynott provided further incentive to pursue the rock’n’roll dream. Connell made ends met by working on Camden Market and various labouring jobs. He did a bit of modelling (with Kate Moss amongst others) after being spotted at a clothes shop where he served. His next musical incarnation was as Melody Nelson – a brash, exciting, poppy power trio
