Biography: Richard Cottle

	Richard Cottle
	Biography

Richard Cottle, was born in Swansea, South Wales on June 26, 1960. Richard came from a musical family: his brother Laurie has played with The Alan Parsons Project, as well as made jazz albums including his solo album called "Five Seasons".

Richard is best known as a keyboard whiz, but Richard explains that this was not how he started out. "The clarinet was my first instrument, that naturally lead onto the sax. As a trendy fifteen year old sax player, I got into gigging with some local rock bands. I was doing a little tour around Wales with a band called Alkatraz when suddenly the keyboard player announced that he couldn't make the final gig, at which point I announced, 'I'll do it'. I furiously learned all the chords the next day, and I did my first gig on a Hammond organ that night. From then I just got totally into the keyboards."

Richard’s early session work includes playing keyboards and sax on the 1984 "Keats" album, then The Alan Parsons Project "Vulture Culture" album. This would begin a long association with Alan Parsons, not only on Project albums, but also records produced by Parsons, and sessions with other Project members.

Since the mid-eighties Richard has done session work with everyone from Eric Clapton and Peter Frampton, to Maxi Priest and Wham!

Richard has also done many live shows and tour dates, having toured with Alan Parsons, and David Bowie ('Glass Spider' world tour in 1987). In 1992, Richard was part of the band when Mike Oldfield performed his "Tubular Bells II" live at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.

In the late nineties, Richard stopped touring in order to stay closer to home with his family. Despite that, he still continues to keep very busy, and says, "the last kind of year or two I have been getting involved writing instrumental music, and I've done a lot of writing for music library companies."

In addition, he’s still doing sessions and in 2000 Richard did synthesizer arrangements, and sound design for the Television movie "Arabian Nights" which aired on the ABC network in the US.

For more about Richard Cottle, see Issue Ten of The Avenue.

RICHARD COTTLE

Selected Discography

	Work With Other Artists
YEAR	ARTIST	ALBUM
1983	Charlie	Charlie	Keyboards, Saxophone
1983	John Verity Band	Interrupted Journey	Keyboards
1984	Public Image Ltd.	This Is What You Want...	Keyboards
1984	Keats	Keats	Synthesizer, Keyboards, Saxophone
1984	John Parr	John Parr	Keyboards
1985	The Alan Parsons Project	Vulture Culture	Synthesizer, Keyboards, Saxophone
1985	Original Soundtrack	Ladyhawke	Keyboards
1985	Sade	Diamond Life	Synthesizer
1986	Charlie	In Pursuit of Romance	Keyboards, Saxophone
1986	Eric Clapton	August	Synthesizer
1986	Peter Frampton	Premonition	Keyboards
1986	Nick Heyward	Postcards From Home	Keyboards, Saxophone
1986	John Parr	Running the Endless Mile	Keyboards
1986	Maxi Priest	Intentions	Horn, Keyboards
1986	The Alan Parsons Project	Stereotomy	Synthesizer, Keyboards, Saxophone
1986	Wham!	Music from the Edge of Heaven	Keyboards
1986	Zerra One	Domino Effect	Keyboards
1987	The Alan Parsons Project	Gaudi	Synthesizer, Saxophone
1987	Jennifer Rush	Heart Over Mind	Bass, Keyboards, Saxophone
1987	Itchy Fingers	Quark	Synthesizer, Keyboards, Sax (Tenor), Producer, Engineer
1987	Mick Jagger	Primitive Cool	Keyboards
1989	Clive Griffin	Step by Step	Keyboards
1989	Walk on Fire	Blind Faith	Keyboards
1990	Paul Young	Other Voices	Keyboards
1990	Various / APP	Freudiana	Synthesizer, Saxophone
1991	Boy George	Martyr Mantras	Keyboards
1991	Foreigner	Unusual Heat	Keyboards
1991	Tina Turner	Simply the Best	Keyboards
1991	Rod Stewart	Vagabond Heart	Keyboards
1991	Seal	Seal
1992	Tashan	For the Sake of Love	Piano, Keyboards
1992	Bad Company	Here Comes Trouble	Keyboards
1992	Joan Armatrading	Square the Circle	Keyboards
1992	Manic Street Preachers	Generation Terrorists	Keyboards
1993	Beverley Craven	Love Scenes	Keyboards
1993	Rick Astley	Body & Soul	Keyboards, Piano (Electric), Synthesizer Bass, Wurlitzer
1993	The Beloved	Conscience	Keyboards, Organ (Hammond)
1993	Alan Parsons	Try Anything Once	Synthesizer, Saxophone
1994	Seal	Seal
1995	Original Soundtrack	Ladyhawke	Keyboards
1995	Alan Parsons	The Very Best Of Live	Keyboards, Saxophone
1996	Alan Parsons	On Air	Keyboards, Saxophone
1996	Tina Turner	Wildest Dreams	Keyboards, Drum Programming
1997	Vanessa-Mae	Storm	Keyboards, Programming
1997	Original Soundtrack	Man Who Knew Too Little	Organ (Hammond)
1997	Psycho Motel	Welcome to the World	Keyboards
1997	Abbacadabra	Revival/Flight One	Producer
1997	Celine Dion	Let's Talk About Love	Fender Rhodes
1997	Deborah Gibson	Deborah	Keyboards
1997	Gota	It's So Different Here	Keyboards
1998	B*Witched	B*Witched	Organ
1999	James Galway	Un-Break My Heart	Keyboards, Programming
1999	Wendy Stark	Child of Transference	Keyboards
2000	Abacadabra	Revival Flight Two	Producer
2000	James Galway	Love Song	Keyboards
2000	Deborah Gibson	Moonchild	Keyboards
2000	S.A.S. Band	S.A.S. Band	Keyboards
2000	Original Television Movie	Arabian Nights	Synthesizer Arrangements, Sound Design
2001	Russell Watson	Voice	Keyboards, Programming
2002	Rick Astley	Keep It Turned On	Keyboards

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