Al Diamond

Nigerian singer/multi-instrumentalist born in 1960.

"I used to make my own guitars out of wood and milk cans," Al remembers. "In 1973 I bought my first guitar when I was 13. I got hooked on bass and that's my main instrument. I started writing my own songs and appearing in public sometime in 1983-4, supporting other bands. You have membership clubs and activities like at Christmas where you've got other bands playing and a couple of friends of mine would go and do their song ROBBY and somebody else's song, most of the time because we didn't have time to rehearse and practice our own. In the process people thought my material was basically good enough for me to release commercially. I got a lot of encouragement from people for my homemade demos and I got a contact with a company who released an album in 1986. That was recorded and mixed here in England. It was called 'Call Me Up'." -Al Diamond, Cross Rhythms Magazine #18, December 1st, 1993