Kim Rowley is a harmonica player, lyricist and singer from Surrey, England. Inspired by Lee Brilleaux of Dr Feelgood, Steve Gibbons, Huey L and most especially Stevie Wonder he bought his first harmonica, a cheap untuned Chinese copy from a junk shop in Reading in 1978 and, by and large, completely failed to do anything with it. From these couple of lines in Kim’s diary entry for 23rd November 1978: ''Had a pasty and chips and a few Brakespears at lunchtime in the Rising Sun (Reading), Went into the junk shop next door and bought a harmonica. Move over Lee Brilleaux, Huey Lewis and Steve Gibbons!...Met Carol this evening at the One Oak (Camberley.) Told her about the harmonica purchase and she burst out laughing. I will learn how to play it, if only to show her I can.''

How different Kim’s life would have been if she hadn't laughed!

Then, after moving from sleepy Camberley to bustling East Dulwich with Carol in 1980, he immersed himself in the then thriving pub-rock scene. In 1982, at the Victorian boozer the Upland Tavern, he fell in love with the music of a band called Eat The Bear and very quickly went from groupie to being asked to manage the act. He did that for five years with a band that was led by guitarist Bob Sellins who was part of the Wishbone Ash sphere as well as including the legendary Goodie and ornithologist Bill Oddie. Eat The Bear played gigs all over London, from following strippers in seedy Peckham dives to gigging to large crowds at many of the legendary pub-rock venues.

Eat The Bear’s set was comprised of all their own songs and Kim learned how to use a mixing desk in the band’s own studio, a converted garage at Bob’s house in Balham. This led him to mixing much of the live sound at the Cherry Tree in East Dulwich for various bands but especially Manfred Mann’s Steve Waller who, along with harmonica blues virtuoso Stevie Smith, played a regular Sunday lunchtime session that included any number of guests, from Bad Company’s Boz Burrell to an astonishing day when George Benson turned up and played Masquerade.

Finally, and inspired by Stevie Smith, Kim bought his first ‘proper’ harmonica; a Hohner Blues in the key of C. He set about some serious learning by playing along to records and eventually cracked it with Cruising With The Fonz, the B- side to the theme from the hugely popular Happy Days TV show.

Eat The Bear finally split in 1986 and the era of music seemed to have come to an end when Carol and Kim moved away from London to the Surrey country village of Capel. The harmonica’s were put away as their daughters Amy and Lucy were born and Kim was running an insurance business in the City as a Lloyd’s Underwriter. As it turned out, this was just the start of thirty-five years of Kim’s life as a musician but perhaps that should be part of the blog.