Born in 1951, in Urmston, Manchester, music has always been a part of his life from a very early age. Chris, who began playing guitar at 11 in an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Hank Marvin of the Shadows, like so many of his generation, also learned classical guitar at the same time. Because the Shadows' music was not at that time available, he began taking the music off the records, armed with a good ear and his recently learned knowledge of the structure of musical harmony.

He was always composing music, albeit firstly pseudo-Shadows instrumentals, and then singer-songwriter material when he became part of that tradition in his early 20s.At the time of leaving school he joined his first group a folk trio, imaginatively called Sue, Jean and Chris with whom he played a grand total of 8 concerts. He then commenced a more interesting partnership with Chris Fogg, a school friend of like mind, with whom he wrote some of his earliest songs, and together they played many concerts over a four-year period. During the period 1970 - 1983 he managed to write 139 songs, some of which were collaborations with friends.

In 1974 he was asked to be Musical Director for a new amateur theatre group, which later became Genesis Theatre, a group who revelled in performing rock musicals often never attempted by amateurs. In this capacity he directed the music for Hair, Tommy, Demolition Man, and numerous other shows including two shows co-written with the Director, Chris Fogg, called Stag and Marilyn. Both were performed to great acclaim, and Genesis Theatre performed numerous times at the prestigious Royal Exchange Theatre to sell out audiences. During this time members of the resident theatre group band and some of the cast singers combined to form a rock group, which after various name changes, became Elf. Here his knowledge of multiple harmonies and his previous use of interesting arrangements were used to great effect in producing a group sound that, at its best, was unusual and intriguingly different from other groups of the time. They toured locally for little more than a year before deciding to call it a day, by which time Genesis Theatre had also split up after seven years together, as Chris Fogg moved down to Somerset for his job.

Chris had always played and composed for the classical guitar along with all his other musical activities. This really took off in the early 80's when he lost interest in writing songs, in favour of composing instrumental music exclusively for the classical guitar. It was at this time that he had the insane idea of transcribing the recorded works of Barrios, the famous Paraguayan guitar performer - composer, who made nearly sixty 78rpm recordings, but never managed to write them down himself. It took Chris three years of his spare time to write them all down, and they eventually saw the light of day as 'The Barrios Anniversary Edition' This was the first edition to publish the complete transcriptions of Barrios, and to this day remains the only one to do so.

For the last twenty years, he has carried on composing a large number of works for classical guitar. All of these remained unplayed in a professional capacity until 1996, when Paul Gregory came to play at the Manchester Guitar Circle. He asked Chris for a set of pieces that quoted folk-songs as their basis and the end result was A Garland of Grainger. Paul Gregory gave the premiere of the following spring at the Brighton Festival, and which continues to be in his repertoire today. Paul has recorded a CD recently called Homages on which the Garland was included.

After that, several collaborations have occurred. Chris has completed an eighth work; a 30 minute Quintet in 2002 for Paul Gregory. Paul, being a lover of chamber works involving the guitar, has asked Chris each time for works of different combinations of instruments with the guitar.

Since then other players, including Craig Ogden, the famous Australian guitarist whose playing was included in the 'Notting Hill' film soundtrack. Other names include Shuko Shibata, Galina Vale and Scott Bradley, who have played his original works, and Karin Schaupp, Neil Smith and Philippe Lemaigre have played his Barrios transcriptions.

As a result, Chris started receiving compositional commissions. He wrote a piece for the 2001 Dillington Festival, which was performed by the assembled students in the end-of-festival guitar orchestra recital. October 2001 saw the first performance by Craig Ogden and the multi percussionist Paul Tanner; of his 22 minute Sonatina for Tuned Percussion and Guitar which was first performed in Perth, and was recently broadcast on Australian ABC Classic FM.

Chris also reviews for the Classical Guitar magazine, plays in an acoustic instrumental cross-over group called Acoustic Moods, and is still in considerable demand as a transcriber. As such, he is regularly asked to transfer to manuscript, recorded guitar works which have never been printed, by a growing number of players.

Chris has a large quantity of private guitar students and plays classical guitar at various functions. He makes himself available for private parties, wedding receptions and many other get-togethers where people want some light unobtrusive music in the background. After more than 30 years of doing this, Chris has more than four hours of unrepeated material to use on such occasions. His unusual ability to make up arrangements, on the spot, of requests he gets at such functions, has amassed more than two hours of his own arrangements of popular material. This resulted in a professionally recorded CD of 21 of them, called Making Arrangements. The sheet music for 10 of these pieces has been published by Lathkill Music, with an accompanying CD of the contents, played by Paul Gregory.

Lately, he has been using the skills of his Acoustic Moods compatriot, Tony Ward, to restore his entire recorded back catalogue of shows, songs, and performances. Once completed, they will be made available to any interested parties.