A bit of a practical joker, he started off in music playing his neighbor's piano whenever possible at age 5. It was evident to his neighbors that he seriously liked it and wasn't going to be polite and leave them in peace. They were very tolerant. With much left out of many years of hand clapping fun in the Alberta Foothills and Rocky Mountains growing up to be a law-abiding decent citizen, suffice to say that at the ripe age of (ya right) he up and left the dry highlands to live in the damp coastal regions of neighboring British Columbia and...
Joined SOTW in 1986 to play bass, chapman stick, some keyboards, some guitarre. Encouraged the boys to self-produce their third album, "Labour Day." Completed by Danny Greenspoon, this album went on to establish the band's place in alternative folk in Canada. He now occupies the stage right regions making various relevant noises pertaining to the music of the band on octave Mandolin, Electric/Midi Guitarre, and the electric bass.
Often found lurking in various studios on the West Coast and elsewhere, behind the desk and out behind open mic's, Hugh deeply enjoys helping others in recording their own projects. He has produced albums by Mark Perry (Vera's Cafe), Micheal Friedman, The Town Pants (Piston Baroque) and more recently Victoria based Newfoundland sounding Jeremy Walsh.
After operating a Sonic Solutions editing and CD mastering system for Victoria Canada based Media Magic Enterprises, he has moved to serving clients on his own system. (Media Magic has retired from public business as a Mastering House.)
For the past year Hugh has been blessed with the honour of touring with the soon to be fabulously famous Oscar Lopez. He can also be heard in concert from time to time with James Keelaghan.
Gear
Hugh seriously digs Alembic basses, having played them since 1978 - "still haven't found anything as versatile, or with a more pure bass register" - and is sporadically working out on 8-string pedal steel guitar, viola and fiddle, and overtone singing.
A great proponent of signal processing, he likes to put the Heiden octave mandolin through varying combinations of this and that.
Hear him on albums by:
The Irish Rovers
Sarah McLaughlin (second album)
Stephen Fearing - Out to Sea
James Keelaghan
And there are probably others, but Hugh just left, and didn't finish what he was saying ... typical ...