Simon Dunbar-Whittaker

Well, more of an autobiography, really. I was born Simon Dunbar-Whittaker in1968, in Bath, England. The whole family emigrated to South Africa 1980 and I went to boarding school in Cape Town. The school had a beautiful Steinway grand piano in the main hall and I'd play it in the evenings before supper. I wasn't really interested in music lessons until my dad suggested that I go for tuition at a private music school called the Jazz Workshop. So every Wednesday afternoon I'd get on a train and then walk up to Bree Street to see Merton Burrow in his small room filled with sheet music. He taught me most of the basic theory that I still use today.

It was at the boarding school that I met Alistair Musson and John Frick, two guitar players hooked on the blues. A couple of years after we'd all got out of school they formed a band with Rob 'Big Bob' Nagel on bass and Graham Newman on Drums. They decided to call it the band the Blues Broers, a pun on the title of that classic Dan Akroyd movie - the Blues Brothers. Some months later they asked me to bring along my Fender Rhodes piano and jam with them at a Saturday afternoon gig at the Brass Bell in Kalk Bay. It was the first real gig I'd ever played and I was so nervous I set up behind the left speaker stack, totally hidden from the audience. Anyway, it must have sounded ok because they gave me fifty bucks and asked me to come again next week... and that's how it all started.

It's also when I was first graced with the nickname 'Agent Orange'. The story goes that one day at the 'Bell I had an orange with me for the entire afternoon. That's it.

Anyway, by early 1991 Alistair and Graham had left the band and the inimitable drummer, Frank Frost, joined us. Why 'inimitable'? I can't imagine. In June we released the first official Blues Broers album 'Shake like that', a collection of John's songs. There were a bunch of venues we used to play back then; the 'Bell, The Pumphouse down on the Waterfront (as well as a rocking live bar, it also housed the pumps to empty the dry dock and when they turned them on the whole building shook), the Ruby in the Dust... but If you were part of the scene in '91, the coolest place to play in Cape Town was at the Smokehouse Blues Club, 45 Shortmarket street, 4th floor.

During the week this place was a rundown gentleman's club for master mariners (think dusty rooms with a few boozy, retired sailors) but on a Friday night the bands, along with three or four hundred people, moved in. Playing at this venue was the best fun you could have and still get paid at the end of the evening. We were also playing with guest artists like Erika Lundi, Steve Walsh, Clayton Frick and the Blues Brunettes, two backing singers whose energy, enthusiasm and sultry beauty nearly made up for the fact that neither of them could sing. Then John fell in love with one of them. They got married, and told us they were moving to Holland. We had to find another singing guitar player.

Or a singer and a guitar player. Nico Burger had worked with Rob in the band All Night Radio and he really could play a mean guitar and he had a girlfriend who helped us carry our gear. Then 'Doctor' John Mostert responded to an ad we'd placed in the Argus. Rob asked him to sing the first verse of 'Hoochie Coochie Man' over the phone. He got the job and we were on the road again. Reading these old press clippings now its clear that the live music audience has taken a knock. In 1993 we were playing three or four times a week. Nowadays a popular band's lucky to play that many times in a month. A consequence of all this action was that we spent a lot of time hanging around in bars. Now Nico Burger had an Achilles' heel (or an Achilles' throat). He suffered from stage-fright and drank to take the edge off. Nico was a natural talent and a good-natured guy but he began to drink so much his playing suffered and in April 1994 we fired him. Two years later Nico suffered kidney failure and died.

When Frank suggested that his son, Albert, would be a suitable replacement, I wasn't convinced. I mean he was seventeen or thereabouts... still at school... it wasn't going to work. But, of course, it did and the classic Broers line-up was formed. We started to travel the country playing festivals and tours, we made three studio albums and a live one, I started to work with a lot of different musicians as a session player and guest artist. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Albert and myself became good friends. We drove thousands of kilometers in my Ford Cortina bakkie, laden with Hammond organs and fender amps. Albert and I started Frosted Orange in 1996. The music scene had moved to Stellenbosch and it seemed every month there was a festival to play at. We performed as a duo on and off for nearly four years before Jaques Schutte brought his drums around to the farm where Albert was staying. I played left-hand bass and organ and we both sang. The trio remains my favourite band line-up.

In '97 the Blues Broers recorded 'the Cellar Tapes', and Frank Frost was diagnosed with lung cancer. As Frank became weaker, the Blues Broers performed less and less. Eventually, on the evening of the 27 January 1999, Frank Frost passed away. The Broers were never quite the same after that.

We found a new drummer for the Blues Broers, Mr. Dave Lewarne and Frank's wife, Maggie, continued to act as an agent, booking gigs for us. Albert and I were now working with Valiant Swart Band and Albert started solo shows. Frosted Orange recorded 'My love is a leopard', our first studio album, in 2002. The Valiant gigs started to take up a lot of our time and I spent a lot of time on the road. Eventually, in 2002, the Blues Broers decided to call it a day. We had two great farewell shows at The Hidden Cellar in Stellenbosch and we all remain friends. At the beginning of 2003 Albert moved to Pretoria to work with Arno Carstens and Frosted Orange was no more.

At the moment I still play with the Valiant Swart Band and I've started to play with my own trio around town, so I guess I'll see you out there.

Simon

The Simon Orange Trio is what happens when 3 of the county’s top session musicians come together to do their OWN thing, instead of playing on and adding to other musicians projects.

Originally from the UK, Simon Orange attended Cape Town’s Jazz Workshop while still at school and then went on to join legendary blues band, the Blues Broers and later the superb experimental blues-rock duo Frosted Orange with Albert Frost.

The trio started as a regular Sunday night date at a local restaurant in Stellenbosch playing a mixture of Jazz, Blues and good-time Boogie-Woogie and soon they were playing all over the Western Cape.

Simon regularly performs and records with several of the country’s top acts, notably the Valiant Swart Band and Big Sky. But since the dissolution of The Blues Broers and Frosted Orange in 2003, he’s lacked a vehicle for his own songwriting and vocals. He’s also missed playing those Nina Simone and Ray Charles tunes he grew up with.

The Trio features Schalk Joubert on bass and Neville Arnolds on drums. Schalk has a reputation as one of the country’s most experienced bass players and if you’ve got any Afrikaans albums made over the last ten years in your music collection, the chances are that Schalk played bass on a few of them. Neville studied percussion in Norway and now performs and teaches music in Stellenbosch.