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Roo Friend is a blues and roots musician creating songs which are different and sometimes firmly tongue-in-cheek. His influences are Arlo Guthrie, Frank Zappa, Georgie Fame, and Mose Allison. Nothing is sacred and topics include politics (of course), the weather, divorce and property settlement, gardening, crop rotation, junk food, obesity, infants, terrorism, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, ageing, architecture, cooking, depression, traffic and spouses. Solo it’s stand-up with a guitar. As a trio Roo is baritone hybrid guitar, drums and tenor sax. Roo studied with Ike Isaacs (Stephane Grapelli Band) and Tommy Emmanuel and worked with Larry Muhoberac (Elvis Presley’s pianist) for 3 years, Long Way To The Top (guitar and banjo), Little Pattie and Normie Rowe, as well as working in music theatre Orchestras with conductor Dobbs Franks (New York), a career spanning 30 years in the music business. Roo has just released “Grant John” at stomperoo.com, where there are more works in the style he calls bluejazz, a mix of blues, jazz, funk and rock. “Grant John” is a bluegrass folk rock tune about the man who has been walking the eastern inland of Australia for 43 years, since he told his mum he was going away for 3 months!