PK

PK Chown - Born in Northampton, England to a family of piano tuners, PK is a multi-faceted musician who aside from performing and singing, composes, records and produces his own material, and works as DJ, the Duke of Tunes. At the heart of these different facets is a dedication to a particular sound and atmosphere best described as ‘latin easy-listening’.
Already at 12, picking out tunes at the piano PK showed an early flare for composing timeless melodies. He formed his first group at 13 and through his teens played in various combos wielding a variety of instruments including bass, vibes, oboe, piano and guitar.
In his late teens he and musical colleague Glyn Bush composed the incidental music to ‘Another Suburban Romance’, an early play by scriptwriter Alan Moore. He continued to set Mr Moore’s lyrics to music in the 70’s seminal new wave act The Mystery Guests whose 1st single ‘Wurlitzer Junction’ they co-composed.
Out of the ashes of this combo arose the ambitious one-man show Mr Liquorice in which his shadowy alter-ego sang, danced and mimed to a soundtrack of collaged film fragments, Hollywood finales and twisted bossa novas. Joined later by Cara Tivey and a troupe of Busby Berkley type dancers in Liquorice Allsort outfits the show became Mr Liquorice and the Moving Stairtcase, a fully choreographed stage production.
In the early 80’s PK went to live in Birmingham and played in various jazz, pop and experimental outfits. It was also here that he worked as a studio engineer using the opportunity to return in the dead of night and work on his own recordings. It was in this fertile period that recording and production became for him an end in itself and PK never again listened to his old Elenco and Verve albums in quite the same way. These were, quite simply, works of breathtaking brilliance and PK wanted his own music to have that kind of sound.
In the late 80’s, he joined forces once again with former colleague Glyn Bush to form Big Moments - a latter-day Ellington-style big band. With a dozen of the finest young jazz musicians in tow they crafted classics of modern swing and latin music. For three years they fronted a band of constantly shifting personel (it was often the case that certain members would meet for the first time on stage or in the studio) before PK left England in the early 90’s.
He went first to Paris where he joined new-wave folk band the Barking Dogs who, despite their obvious debt to the Pogues, left teethmarks that were very much their own. PK strapped on a junkshop accordeon and of they went, rollicking through the cities of Europe like a musical hurricane.
It was here in Paris that PK met and began playing music with Sam Coppen. After the inevitable demise of the Barking Dogs, PK and Sam flew to Asia where they toured and played together in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Here, meeting and playing with musicians from South America and Brazil, they fell in love with the bossa nova. PK switched back to guitar and began singing in Portugese. Sam took up Brazilian percussion.
Returning to England in 1998 after 8 years of almost constant touring, the Blue Planet Sound was born and the two recorded their first CD album ‘Make Lemonade’