Pianoman

:"For other uses, see Piano Man"

Pianoman is an alias of dance music producer James Sammon from Bradford, West Yorkshire who shot to number 6 in the UK Charts with the hit single "Blurred" in June 1996. His follow up to Blurred released on 3 Beat Records was from a Belinda Carlisle sample of "Live Your Life Be Free" and was titled "Party People" and narrowly missed a place in the Top 40.

As well as his own commercial releases and remixes James Sammon has worked and recorded / remixed artists such as Dr. Dr, Ian Brown, Craig David and Donna Air.

Pianoman has had many other guises, the most successful being Bass Boyz which was signed to Polydor and reached the top 100.

Blurred can be found on many compilations including "Now That's What I Call Music! 34".

The name Pianoman was first popularized by the Billy Joel song "Piano Man", but this was not the reason for James Sammon's use of the name. Due to the many records he released during the '90s whilst he managed a record shop and worked on several local Yorkshire pirate radio stations (see below) that were dance music piano anthems, including the popular PCP "That Whitney Tune" featuring samples from "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", a Bolton record shop owner would call James "Pianoman" whenever they met. This would lead to the use of the name Pianoman for his future releases, and become his most famous aka.

Although known for the hand bag commercial dance sound he has in fact produced tracks and released vinyl in many "dance" styles, from Drum & Bass, Garage & 2-Step, House and even R&B and Big Beat Fatboy Slim-type stuff. His first ever release was a hardcore E.P called "The Happy Hardcore EP" as DJ Sammon, the name he took to using during his ten-year stint at every pirate radio station in Yorkshire.

In his twenties, Sammon began on one of Yorkshire's first pirates, Bradford-based station Paradise City Radio (aka PCR), the same station which also launched Huddersfield-based renowned drum 'n' bass producer L Double. He later worked as a volunteer presenter for Emergency Fm, Energy Fm, WKLR and popular Leeds-based house music pirate Dream FM, when pirate radio was in its heyday.

It has been said by some - though not by James - that he was "the Chris Moyles of pirate radio", which is funny as Chris Moyles was, in fact, on the same pirate radio station as Sammon, and did a show after his. At that time Moyles used the alias 'DJ Tanner'. George, Karl and Martin were also in this Band in the early days and did many gigs all over the uk and Europe.

Currently a part of the Service Crew, Bassline Group.

Recent Projects

The Service Crew

External links

* [http://www.solovinyl.com/ Solo Vinyl Records]
* [http://www.discogs.com/artist/Pianoman+&+Nils+Booph Discogs Profile]