Q & A
DAVE GREENSLADE
From Colosseum and Greenslade to G&T, the keyboard player discusses his latest musical adventures with Blonde On Blonde guitarist Dave Thomas.
Words: Mike Barnes
Dave Greenslade grew up with classical music and was an early fan of jazz and R&B keyboard styles. When he was 15 he first played with drummer Jon Hiseman and bass guitarist Tony Reeves at Eltham Park Methodist Church Hall. He went on to play with Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds and Geno Washington, and the three friends reconvened when Colosseum formed in 1968: “a jazz rock outfit; one of the first in Europe,” Greenslade says. He went on to put together the twin keyboard prog quartet Greenslade, which ran from 1972 to 1976.
He returned to Colosseum in 1994, where he remained until 2015, three years before Hiseman’s death. Greenslade also recorded a number of solo records including instrumental concept albums The Pentateuch Of The Cosmogony in 1979 and From The Discworld in 1994, inspired by the works of Terry Pratchett, and has written extensively for TV. His current project is a blues-inflected collaborative album G&T with guitarist Dave Thomas, who played in the 70s prog band Blonde On Blonde.