Craig in action

Craig’s history reads like a ‘who is who’ of rock music… his singing career started with a band called ‘Relay’ in his home town of Plymouth - at his audition for the band, he was asked to sing ‘Movin On’ by Bad Company – he ‘passed’ with flying colours and got the job.

 

After gigging in and around Plymouth for a couple of years, Craig formed ‘Stealer’ (no prizes for guessing where the inspiration for name came from…) - Stealer had a great deal of success in the South West, and had an array of very talented local musicians but his feet became ‘itchy’ as he wanted to take his career up a gear, turn pro and make a living from his incredible vocal talent.

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Craig Dickson

 

He answered an advert in a national music mag which read:- “Vocalist wanted to work with American record producer\songwriter” - he sent a tape off, hoping for a reply…. Only two days later he received a phone call from Kenny Young, a New York based songwriter. Kenny has many hits under his belt with one of the most famous being ‘Under The Boardwalk’, recorded by the Drifters.

 

Craig released a single, penned by Kenny Young, called ‘Young Girl With Chinese Eyes’ - unfortunately due to lack of air-play and poor marketing, failed to make it into the charts. They continued to work together for a couple of years but Craig decided to head for London and form his own rock band and find his own niche. He quickly discovered that blues based rock was ‘his’ style – he had really found his niche!

 

The opportunity arose to join forces with a songwriter who had formed a band whose style was based around the Soul\Blues crossover of Free - having been a big fan of the music of Free and Bad Company, Craig jumped at it! ‘Raw Deal’ was formed and together with Regan Cairns (guitarist), Craig began to write songs to reflect their passion for British blues rock, complementing the sound of Free.  Together they played in Raw Deal on the London circuit at the Marquee (see pics), The Roundhouse and Rock Garden - performing support slots with Mamas Boys and Wilko Johnson (famously unique styled guitarist of Dr Feelgood fame).

 

Very soon the rock music press began to sit up and take notice with reviews appearing in, amongst others, Kerrang and NME. These were extremely positive which generated interest from other sources – Chris Kimsey (Record Producer – Rolling Stones, Marillion, Mick Jagger) offered to record their demos for free!! Two songs were recorded at Air Studios in London and soon after, they received a phone call from Larry Mazer (Manager of Kiss, Cinderella, Ywingmie Malmsteen) in Atlantic City.

 

Larry loved the band and was quoted as saying “I’ve found my new Free!”… Larry flew to London and put the “buzz out” to record company executives “across the pond”. Geffen Records, MCA and Atlantic Records came across to watch see the band perform. On Larry’s second visit, he introduced the band to Derek Shulman (President of Atlantic), who flew over from the USA just to watch them rehearse! During this rehearsal in Kings Cross, Shulman was heard whispering to Mazer “that voice will sell 3 million records in the first week of release!” – Raw Deal were signed to Atlantic Records.

 

Tours with bands such as Kiss followed but, unfortunately, personalities within the record company clashed artistically with the band (Atlantic proposed some different members to the band line-up and was fiercely opposed by Raw Deal). This led to huge problems between management (Larry Mazer) and Atlantic Records themselves – Larry eventually refusing to let the band continue with Atlantic.

 

Craig himself was approached by Derek Shulman to sign a three-year solo deal with Atlantic but refused - such was his commitment to Raw Deal that he opted instead to look elsewhere for a record company deal for the whole band. As Shulman was such a ‘big wheel’ and had such a huge influence – no other American record company showed any interest from then on.

 

Not to be beaten by politics, Raw Deal continued to play live and a phone call from a multi-millionaire German Casino owner was about to come to the ‘rescue’…

 

…The band relocated to Germany to a purpose-built and fully equipped recording studio - complete with engineers. The whole band lived in a large country house which came with swimming pool and sauna and each band member was given a monthly retainer fee. Raw Deal has no record sales but they were living in the lap of luxury. But power struggles in the band ultimately ended this arrangement.

 

Craig spent the next six months living in Switzerland in a lodge, somewhere in the middle of the Alps – recording and performing with musicians who had invited him over to work with them.

 

Both Craig and his partner chose to return to England, first of all to London but decided to move back down to Plymouth. On his return, Craig was offered several opportunities to front and sing with various musicians, playing in a duo called ‘Sharks in Italy’, then ‘Red’ (see pic), and a couple of other local bands.

 

The opportunity to join Free & Co. came up due to their singer emigrating and Craig is “happy and excited” to come onboard. Craig said “when I started singing these songs a the first rehearsal, it was like coming home!”

 

He is back doing what he does best – ‘singing the blues’.

 

Jez – friend and Free fan.   

 

Raw Deal at the Marquee, London