SOME forty-four years ago a quiet, shy young man, with a burning passion for Acoustic Roots Music, left his job as a trainee computer technician at Exeter University to embark upon a career as a musician.

Today Phil Beer is considered “Folk Music Royalty”, loved and respected worldwide as a singer, multi-instrumentalist and raconteur.

Now this giant of a man, with a reputation to match, will perform his celebrated one man show at The Gill Nethercott Centre Whitchurch Hants on Saturday March 11.

As a member of the acoustic supergroup Show of Hands, Phil has performed all over the world leaving “Sold Out” signs in his wake, including four concerts at The Royal Albert Hall. Awards and plaudits from both the public and the Music Industry are too numerous to mention, but none was more deserved than the Honorary Doctorate of Music awarded to the band members by Plymouth University in 2015.

Phil Beer’s ability to play just about any stringed instrument is legendary. As a solo performer his influences are numerous and varied. As well as traditional English and Celtic music, he also draws heavily on Americana and the many contemporary songwriters whose work he admires.

Phil's musical genius has led to him playing on album tracks for such luminaries as The Rolling Stones, Mike Oldfield and Steve Harley, not to mention hundreds of other recording artistes. He has also been a member of some of the most noteworthy and influential Folk Music collaborations of his generation, including The Albion Band and, of course, Show of Hands.

A Phil Beer solo concert brings together all the threads that have run through his varied musical career and weaves them together into one spectacular tapestry of music, song and even the occasional hilarious anecdote.

He appears at The Gill Nethercott Centre Whitchurch Hants on Saturday 11 March at 8.00pm.

Box Office Details. Tel. 01273 841300. www.gillnethercottcentre.org.uk