Sir George

[brownie]

From Press Association today...

JAZZ STAR GEORGE SHEARING KNIGHTED

Jazz pianist George Shearing has been knighted in the New Year's Honours List.

The 87-year-old was born blind and went on to become one of the most renowned jazz musicians of his generation.

Speaking from his home in New York, Shearing said: "It is amazing to receive an honour for something I absolutely love doing.

"Receiving such an honour as a knighthood might also show young people what can be achieved in life if one learns his craft and follows his dreams."

He added: "My mind keeps flashing on my beginnings as a pianist playing in a pub for the equivalent of 5 dollars a week. What a journey it has been from that pub to Buckingham Palace."

The youngest of nine children born to a coalman from Battersea, north London, he was given piano lessons during his four years at the Linden Lodge School for the Blind in nearby Wandsworth. There he painstakingly learned musical scores in Braille.

In the 1930s he joined an all-blind band and made his first appearance on BBC radio.

Shearing moved to the US in 1947 and two years later scored a huge hit with the record September In The Rain, which sold 900,000 copies.

With his band, The Shearing Quintet, he became a regular performer at legendary New York jazz club Birdland. He has performed on stage and as a recording artist ever since, playing for three US Presidents - Ford, Carter and Reagan - and for the Queen.

In 1982 and 1983 he won Grammy Awards and in 1993 received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement.

[mikeweil]

Congrats, Sir George!

His health is a little frail recently, I'm told - I wish him all the best.

[Teasing the Korean]

Can't wait to see him joust with Mick Jagger.