Pierre’s story starts on the Caribbean island of Dominica where he persuaded a friend to loan him his guitar. “I started giving him one Caribbean dollar every week to loan me the guitar”, says Pierre. “Every Friday he would turn up at my house and I would have to go and nik another dollar from my gran to give to him.
In 1978 Pierre arrived in the UK – but without a guitar. “I asked my mother whether she would buy me a bass guitar,” says Pierre. “So she ordered one from a catalogue, but when it arrived it turned out to be a cheap plank of plywood with SIX strings. I couldn’t tell her that it was the wrong guitar!” Back on six strings, Pierre hung on to “this almost unplayable plank” for about a year before buying a Les Paul copy. “I remember it was called a Grant,” says Pierre, ‘it was another plank of plywood – but it was a lot better than that first instrument.” The ‘Grant’ lasted for another year, while more funds were raised. “Then I bought my first ‘proper’ guitar on HP – a Fender Stratocaster.”
