Newcastle Franchisee, Paul Gibson
Paul Gibson
Paul Gibson is married to Ruth, a language tutor and they have 2 sons. He is also a governor of a local primary school. He is a classically trained pianist who developed a sideline in Boogie Woogie and rock and roll at the tender age of 9, courtesy of a bit of tuition from a mate of his dads! Now smitten, he would have to admit to spending more time playing Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles rather than Bach and Bartok.
"I was probably subconsciously trying to be Jools Holland before he was!" A teenage fascination with rock music inevitably lead to him taking up bed room guitar playing which continued for many a year!
Having studied textiles and worked in a sales and development in that industry, as well as in Business Support and community finance, Paul continued to develop his guitar playing skills through various community music projects incorporation jazz and popular music, which in turn led to playing guitar and keyboards in local rock covers band ‘The Parish’, which he has done tor the last ten years. The Parish were originally an RNLI fund raising band but now have a fairly busy schedule playing all manner of functions and venues for all ages covering anything from Chuck Berry to The Kings of Leon. Paul's favorite rock and blues players are Carlos Santana, EC and Stevie Ray Vaughan as well as Jeff Beck and Martin Taylor on the Jazz side.
During this time he has also given private guitar tuition to children from beginners and this has been the catalyst for setting up the Rock Project in Newcastle. “Every week I enquired of two of my now very competent students as to whether they have managed to put a band together at school and always got a negative answer. I firmly believe that the Rock Protect method of bringlng children and young people together into a learning and band situation at the same time is a fantastic way for them to really enjoy music making”.
Rock Project students performing on stage.