Si Hayden -- Guitarist

"A six-string virtuoso gives a master class of one-take approach leaving no space for casual spontaneity and the whole world for emotions.
With all his versatility, Si Hayden could have been a national treasure in the U.K. if only he had the rage of Rory Gallagher or the flash of Richard Thompson, but he prefers to keep it down and serious be it on his own or as foil for violinist Joe O'Donnell, or as multi-instrumentalist in jazzers MORLEY HAYDEN HAINES. And here's an example: Si's many musical faces are reflected, and refracted, in a dozen of acoustic guitar pieces that are being played as straight as a lace goes, with no overdubs to paint an additional, needless vignette. Still, the cover car is an amalgamation of the title track which marries Delta blues to flamenco to demonstrate Hayden's filigree finger-work, while the devilish slide that rides through "A Slight Tale" makes its ominous entrance in the sparse opener "Dusk" to set the agenda. Yet it doesn't prepare the listener for such deliciously lazy groove as the one under "I Roll" or the shadow of Indian chant of "Walnut Bridge". Whatever wide the maestro stylistic palette is, there's a wholeness to the album, a sign of Si's immaculate taste matching his delivery and making the result sharply focused and sensually riveting. Calm but cool."
**** (Dmitry M. Epstein - Let It Rock)

Si Hayden: Self taught multi-instrumentalist and guitarist for Celtic violin virtuoso Joe O’Donnell(SonyBMG/East of Eden/Rory Gallagher), a founder member of live dnb band 91db(Noble England with Rik Mayall/Motivation Records), one third of jazz trio Morley Hayden Haines(Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2009), performs extensively as a solo instrumentalist having just released a 23rd album but has appeared on over 30 including guitar compilations with Bumblefoot(Guns 'n' Roses), Christophe Godin and Dave Martone(Satriani), performed with likes of singer-songwriter Rob Halligan on BBC1 TV and collaborated live with Mobo award winner Soweto Kinch, composed soundtracks for Film, BBC Radio4 and the Belgrade Theatre.

Live Reviews ::: Discography ::: Album Reviews ::: Press ::: Booking ::: SilveryRecords

Live Reviews (TOP OF PAGE)

"20th CD by Coventry guitar ace Si Hayden. 'Live at the Hinckley Act Folk Club' captures Si at his mesmerising best at the unusual venue located in an industrial estate off the A5 which regularly features such top guitarists as Gordon Giltrap and Michael Chapman. A prolific recording artist since 1998, Si’s last live solo guitar album was recorded at the 2005 Coventry Jazz Festival."
(Pete Willow/Coventry Telegraph)
"A classical Spanish style guitarist, who will blow you away with his jazz, latin and funk infused songs. How he manages it all on just a 6 string guitar still amazes us. You will have to see him to believe it!
(AcousticLounge, Clapham)
"Si Hayden left members of the audience in wonder of how anyone could deliver such harmony and rhythms of complexity using a six string, steel strung acoustic guitar"
(Alvin Leon/AQT/UK)
"His solo classical-Spanish style guitar playing, peppered with pepper, funk and drumnbass, takes your breath away like a sledgehammer to the chest"
(The Shiznit/local magazine)
"Si's fantastic technique and style on the guitar always goes down a storm at the festival and it was great to welcome him back!
(Chris Davis/Coventry Jazz Festival)
"one-man musical magician fusing funk, jazz and a splash of drum'n'bass in a single flamenco styled nylon-stringed guitar"
(Warwick Core)
"..a very cool and unique gift. I REALLY enjoy the playing and compositions."
(Florida guitar legend Mike Pachelli)
"Coventrys Si Hayden simply blew us away with his intricate finger skills
(BBC C&W)
"A star quality jazz poetry session"
(The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival)
"very nice guitar playing!"
(Roddy Radiation/The Specials)
"amazing guitarist!"
(Peter Lang, fingerstyle pioneer)
"Beautiful!"
(Gilad Atzmon/The Blockheads)

All albums available at:

www.silveryrecords.com

Record labels of note:

Silvery, Liquid Note, Motivation, Sid Norris

Live appearances include:

Guinness Cork Jazz Festival(2009), The HSBC Coventry Jazz Festival(2005/2007/2009), Waveform Festival(2009), Bunkfest(2008), Godiva festival(2007/2008/2010), Moor Music Festival(2010), Mac theatre, Hexagon theatre, Alexandra theatre, Belgrade theatre, Limelight Theatre, The Hinkley Act Folk Club, The Live Box...

Booking Contacts: (TOP OF PAGE)

Solo guitar: bookings@sihayden.com - www.silveryrecords.com
Joe O'Donnell's Shkayla: tel:024 76 275807 - SidNorrisRecords/Steve Ashwell /backroom@joe-odonnell. com
91db: Ian Kane/http://www.uprightagency.co.uk / ian@uprightagency.co.uk 07939025448
MorleyHaydenHaines: 07904163025 info@silveryrecords.com

Discography (TOP OF PAGE)

Supercharger - Label: Silvery-2011
The Backra Instrumentals - Label: Silvery-2011
Live at The Hinckley Act Folk Club(+DVD - Label: Silvery-2011
Spoilt for choice - Label: Silvery-2011
The Perils the Grace and the Way - Label: Blatant-2011
Mille Miglia - Label: Silvery-2010
COUNTERFEIT - Label: Silvery-2010
Sunrise - Label: Silvery-2010
Waiting - Label: Silvery-2010
Noel Nouvelet - Label: Sid Norris-2010
Waiting Room - Label: Silvery-2010
Swim on by - Label: Silvery-2010
FdWN - Label: Silvery-2010
This Mess - Label: Silvery-2010
The Journey Live at Playwrights - Label: Silvery-2010
Pianose - Label: Silvery-2010
Mainly Blue - Label: Silvery-2010
Live in '05 at the Coventry Jazz Festival - Label: Silvery-2010
'UNCORKeD' Live at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival - Label: Silvery-2010
Noble England - Label: Motivation -2010
The Mysteries - Label: Silvery-2010
Step Forwards - Label: Silvery-2009
SABACA - Label: Silvery-2009
Welcome to Suburbia - Label: Force 8-2009
The apparent rules of thumb - Label: Silvery-2009
Trust Again - Label: Silvery-2009
BACKRA MeN - Label: Silvery-2008
Scenes from the City - Label: Silvery-2008
If your standing, your fair game - Label: Rhetoric-2007
Live like us - Label: Silvery-2007
The Alchemist Vol II - Label: Liquid Note-2007
FMN2 Concert for Pete - Label: Penny Brohn Charity CD-2007
Steel Roots - Label: Silvery-2007
Dark Clouds Fighting - Label: Blatant-2006
Nylon... For Now - Label: Silvery-2006
Fishes - Label: Unreleased-2001
Bring on the life - Label: Unreleased-1999
Steel Happenings - Label: RayCra-1998

TV/Film/DVD

Live Like Us
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Soundtrack
Dockers
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Soundtrack
Chosen
Belgrade Theatre Production (2009): Soundtrack
Big School
Belgrade Theatre Production (2010): Soundtrack
Reel Dreams
Alan van Wijgerden (2011): Soundtrack
'Where Sweeter Rains Fall'
BBC1 Television (2011): Recorded Performance with Rob Halligan
Live at The Hinckley Act Folk Club
SilveryRecords (2011): Live Recording

Radio

Tonight I Write
BBC Radio 4 play by Manjinder Virk (2003): Studio Soundtrack

Theatre

Live Like Us
Belgrade Theatre Production (2007): Studio Soundtrack
Scenes from the City
Belgrade Theatre Production (2007): Studio Soundtrack
The first time I saw snow
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Actor, Live Soundtrack
Now you see me, now you dont
Belgrade Theatre Production (2008): Actor, Live Soundtrack
The Mystery Plays
Belgrade Theatre Production (2009): Studio Soundtrack
Immigration 'In our own words'
Belgrade Theatre Production (2010): Studio Soundtrack
All the moves
Belgrade Theatre Production (2010): Studio Soundtrack
Promise
Belgrade Theatre Production (2011): Studio Soundtrack
Article 30
Belgrade Theatre Production (2011): Live Soundtrack
Spring Awakening
Belgrade Theatre Production (2011): Studio Soundtrack

Album Reviews (TOP OF PAGE)

..its a ripper cd... very, very good!"(Steve Passiouras, PBS FM)
.."A star quality jazz poetry session"(The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival)
.."..a wonderfull guitar player, I've been enjoying this cd.."(Steve Passiouras, PBS FM Australia)
.."Hayden is a very acomplished guitarist, with a good range of styles and moods."(fROOTS Magazine)
.."Si Hayden with Michael Berk deliver an acoustic pearl called Tango Schizophrenia"(Dmitry M. Epstein, Let it Rock)
.."gives a fine display of Americana.. and there is some finger lickin’ pickin’ going on here.."(Is this music magazine)
.."‘Backra Man’ by Morley Hayden Haines has certainly came in from the left-field... no doubt there will be people who appreciate whats going on here..."(Andy Reilly - Is this music)
.."fast killer chops on most tracks.. "Moondance".. a true piece of art.. at times he reminds me of Tuck Andress in his jazzy approach with a lot of rhythm and bass runs going on" ('Bridge Guitar Reviews)
.."a lot of jazz influence... walking bass lines, tapping, ..blazing scale work... great bluesy... funky groove, jazz chording's, some Spanish guitar flourishes, and lots of quick arpeggios... Si does have some chops..."(©Kirk Albrecht, minor7th)
.."Hayden’s trademark supersonic picking is present.. the six-string virtuosity shown on this album is irrefutable.. an album that stuns with its technical brilliance, then later endears you to the soul and depth behind the flashiness"(Peter Clayton, cdreviews)
.."It's really nice to hear new music with real musicians, I do a lot of programmed music, but there is something organic about poetry and well tuned musicians. And Si's work is just great, the double bass playing is spot on... it really sounds like the musicians overstood the poetry."(Performance Poet Benjamin Zephaniah)
.."The album then takes on a the Spanish acoustic delights of “Tango Schizophrenia” from Si Hayden and Michael Berk is a great piece of 2 classical guitars with the right blend of mystical Mediterranean qualities and speedy fretwork in some of the solos and is another highlight, all this coming from gloomy Coventry in the UK! "(©2007 VIRTUOSITYONE)
.."solo guitar mastery of U.K. based Si Hayden... The music may sound vintage but on his CD Hayden puts a new spin on a timeless art form. As he points out in his liner notes, all tracks were recorded with one guitar and no overdubs and all percussion is from the right hand on the guitar body while playing. A modern flamenco master, Hayden makes excellent use of his Ivor Maraints and Jose Ramirez guitars."(Robert Silverstein, 20th Century Guitar)
"20th CD by Coventry guitar ace Si Hayden. 'Live at the Hinckley Act Folk Club' captures Si at his mesmerising best at the unusual venue located in an industrial estate off the A5 which regularly features such top guitarists as Gordon Giltrap and Michael Chapman. A prolific recording artist since 1998, Si’s last live solo guitar album was recorded at the 2005 Coventry Jazz Festival."
(Pete Willow/Coventry Telegraph)
.."This album is refreshingly honest - UK-based composer/guitarist Hayden plays the entire program solo and with no overdubs... flawlessly executes the genre's characteristic strums, descending single-string runs and soundboard taps... Yet he typically makes things more interesting by weaving more complex harmonies and smooth jazz elements into each of the tunes. Si Hayden's appeal comes from successfully melding flamenco with more modern sounds, and doing so without gimmicks or artifice. Both guitarists and general listeners will enjoy this CD; turn it up and enjoy."(©Patrick Ragains, Minor7th)
.."...such an impressive guitar player and Nylon ... for Now is full of interesting music... dizzying flamenco-style runs... pretty, ringing arpeggios. He’s even better when he leans into some meaty rhythmic chording. Then there’s his unique percussion, which is him tapping on the guitar’s wood body. I wish he’d do it more often on this album, but these tracks were recorded in single takes, and providing all that rhythm on top of breakneck picking is, I’m sure, hard work. Fans of guitar virtuosity should check out Si Hayden... a few listens made me appreciate it on a heart-and-soul level as well as a technical one."(©Chip Withrow, musesmuse)
.."About a year and a half ago, I reviewed Si Hayden’s Nylon … for Now. I was very impressed by his solo acoustic guitar virtuosity. I still am, and I like Steel Roots even more. Hayden is still firing off dizzying runs, punctuated by percussive slaps against his guitar. His chord work is full and propulsive. The 12 tracks here are concise, melodic, often rocking. Hayden delivers toe-tapping bluesy jazz (the original “Flat Spot” and his smoking take on Van Morrison’s “Moondance”), folk-country (the leap-out-of-the-speakers opener “Ellya” and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”), Townshend-like power (“Hats Off to Pete Townshend” and “Just a Bit of Fun”) and flights of frenetic fancy (the dizzying “JD and Coffee” and the closing title cut). Hayden often deftly shifts genres several times within songs, and with only one track over four minutes long, Steel Roots delivers wallop after wallop of solo guitar goodness with no time for boredom to set in."(© Chip Withrow, musesmuse)
.."...You might find a methodology to Hayden's playing, but every composition is so tailored with its own voice that it negates everything you have ever learned about method playing. These are not finger moves that are taught in school. They are moves with such imagination and independent thinking that they make you feel honored to hear them. The music has a striking star quality that few artists can achieve. Hayden uses no special effects or overdubs. His playing is divinely pure... Hayden's music falls between the lines that separate jazz from country, and his compositions certainly show that the two have more common factors than most music fans ever knew. You'll never believe that all of these movements are coming out of one acoustic guitar. There is a dreamy quality in Si Hayden's melodies that keeps your head floating up above the clouds while the country aspects in his music keeps everything feeling open and homey... A native of Coventry, England, Hayden's sonic vistas seem to come natural as he plays to the beating pulse of life with total abandonment of conventional methodology. Speaking of unconventional, Si Hayden is left handed and plays right-handed guitars.(Susan Frances, jazzreview.com)
.."Poet laureate in waiting goes all the way to fusion and back - Ra: They're a rare breed, great poets crossing over to music, and with only a couple of names springing to mind, Jonathan Morley, an Eric Gregory Award winner who researches T. S. Elliot's stamp over Carribean literature at the University of Warwick, stands closer to Gil Scott-Heron rather than Leonard Cohen. His lines chime with jive, so Morley teams up with guitarist and composer Si Hayden and drummer Ben Haines to deliver them in style. Cue this album, a companion piece to "Backra Man" the book (note the singular as opposed to the plural in the record's title), a jazzy experience which starts creepingly with Hayden's piano rippling over Haines' shadowy cymbals and Morley's gloomy voice reciting strange images. It resonates on many levels when the "Da Da dada dada" sets alliteration apace in "For Lee Miller", spanky bass brings funk into the "Loki's song" Gothic texture, and baroque country picking paints the "grass glares white" picture of "Spon". The music feels as strange as the poems but one fits the other perfectly. "Backra" means the evil white man, and this fusion of poetry and sparse melodies seems sinister indeed, yet it's not aggressive at all, save for the Rasta talk of "Sistah" that sounds melodius even without ragged accompaniment, whereas the "Duskfall" lace is pure elegance and "Iberian Baroque" gently takes a listener on an Indiana Jone-like adventure to the Indian pyramids. That's where the whiter shade of face re-appears. Haunting!" ****(Dmitry M. Epstein, Let it Rock)