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Scott started playing guitar in late 1967 at high school after being shown a few guitar chords by a friend. At university he continued to learn bits and pieces and discovered a couple of the deep secrets of blues harmonica. He played in a blues duo with a friend who was already an accomplished guitarist, Robert Searls. They played together for a while until Robert formed a rock band and Scott joined his first band, a country blues/jug band called “Mud”. Mud’s repertoire was quite eclectic, and Scott was soon learning contemporary songs by the likes of the Grateful Dead, The Band, Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson and many others. All this was happening while Scott was working towards a science degree majoring in in geology.
After finishing university in 1973, Scott continued to play music full time with various country, blues and acoustic folk bands. Whilst working in a music shop he discovered an aptitude for instrument repair and establshed a home workshop. His growing reputation as a repairer led to his venturing into instrument making in 1978. This was an opportunity to leave the fairly uncertain life of a full time musician to spend more time with his young family. He remained in demand as a guitarist, however and continued to work and tour as a musician in several different bands. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Scott found himself in acoustic blues, bluegrass, country-rock, Celtic and English folk, rhythm and blues and punk-influenced pop music, finding some valuable experience in all of them.
Having started a career as a luthier in 1979, Scott concentrated more on acoustic music as time went by. He continued to play slide guitar, harmonica, mandolin and guitar in many settings and found a great outlet for those talents in two bands. He joined Peter Woodward in an early incarnation of the Ten Cent Shooters and has been playing with him fairly regularly ever since. Scott met his multi talented wife Louisa in 1980 when he joined the string band “Bungarra” with her. They have played together since then and details of their recordings, their family band and other accomplishments are on other pages on this site.
As well as performing as a musician, Scott has appeared on many recordings. He has also produced all the recordings with Louisa on their own recording equipment. He has also composed and recorded for the theatre , television and films. His most recent film work was for JAG productions “Birthrites”, screened on SBS television.
Scott has five wonderful daughters, Barbara and Isobel by a previous marriage, and Ruth, Lucy and Rowena in his marriage with Louisa.
After starting out with no formal musical training, Scott has realised the error of his ways and attended Puget Sound Guitar Workshop in 1998, studying briefly with Bob Brozman. In 2000 he went again and learnt a little flatpicking with Scott Nygaard and some slack key playing with Mike Bristow. He also attended Ashokan Fiddle & Dance camp and learnt some fiddle with Jay Ungar. In 2002 he attended the Easter music classes at the Australian National Folk Festival, studying for a couple of days with Tony McManus. He continues to play as much music as he can.
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