How the Bay City Rollers became Muddy Waters, and Suzi Quatro turned into Sunnyland Slim!
Born in 1964 under the sign of pisces in beautiful Thun, Switzerland, Philipp Fankhauser already preferred at an early age to be sung to sleep by his mum singing Beatles rather than some of the "regular" baby songs!
In 1974 he moved to the italian part of Switzerland with his mother, the canton Ticino, where for the first time he was confronted with the recordings of Eric Clapton. Up to then he was a big fan of the british pop band "The Sweet". He changed that almost instantly and from now on it was Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "Gangster Of Love" that dictated his musical taste.
Only shortly thereafter his brother Christoph gave him an LP by the great Chicago piano pioneer Sunnyland Slim. That was really the starting point of Philipp's obsession with black american Blues. Not that the young boy would have understood the lyrics, but he captured the feeling and the expression of this so uniquely melanchonic music. That was in 1976.
Just one year before he received the legendary first guitar, which is still on his side to this day. It was the beginning of the strong desire to be a Blues player himself one day. Philipp collected every piece of information, every piece of sound he could afford, and was so obsessed with his love for the Blues, that no other hobbies had in any way place in his live. His output in school was not the greatest accordingly; he knew he was to be a Blues singer, no need for much school!!
In 1977 he founded his first band, the "Black Feet". Well, not much to be said about it, other than Philipp was not allowed to play guitar in it, and was ordered to play the bass guitar which did not do much to improve the whole band! At the end of the seventies, being an "elder" teenager at the age of fifteen, his time of concert-going finally kicked in.
1980 Philipp first met Louisiana Red, who took him on stage, and showed him invaluable tricks and tipps.
Along with a couple of friends came his first visit to the famed Montreux Jazz Festival 1981, where he was introduced to the frantic music of Albert Collins.
TO THE YEARS 1982 - 1986
