Peter White

Renowned for his expressive and innovative playing on both electric and nylon-string guitars, British musician Peter White has built a reputation in contemporary smooth jazz and fusion circles. He first attracted notice during the 1970s through his work alongside singer-songwriter Al Stewart, later achieving broader recognition through his own recordings and performances as a bandleader. In addition to joint projects with Richard Elliot, Rick Braun, Kirk Whalum, and Everette Harp, White has issued multiple entries that reached the upper echelons of the Billboard Jazz Albums chart, among them Perfect Moment from 1998, Glow from 2001, Good Day from 2009, and Groovin' from 2016.

Born on September 20, 1954, in Luton, England, to an English father and a French mother, White soon relocated with his family to the nearby town of Letchworth, where his younger brother Danny arrived a few years afterward. Though sports, hiking, and climbing trees occupied much of his childhood, music remained his deepest interest. His father guided him through an array of instruments including the recorder, clarinet, cornet, trombone, violin, harmonica, and piano, yet the guitar required independent exploration; White mastered basic chords by trial and attentive radio listening. The Beatles and the beat-group sound of the 1960s exerted strong influence, and around age twelve he frequently visited schoolmate David Visick to explore an extensive record collection featuring Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix. In his early teens he obtained his first electric guitar and amplifier, only for the equipment to perish in a fire, prompting a shift to acoustic playing that fostered a lasting affinity for unamplified music. After leaving school at eighteen, White spent several months employed at a soup-canning factory before securing an initial professional opportunity, a summer residency at a holiday resort in the south of England. Returning briefly to Letchworth once the season concluded, he soon traveled to London and joined a band under the management of Miles Copeland, whose roster also included Sting, R.E.M., and IRS Records. When Al Stewart’s backing group dissolved, White received an invitation to audition on keyboards; after rehearsing several of Stewart’s compositions he joined the touring lineup at age twenty. During the summer of 1975, Stewart enlisted White for keyboards and acoustic guitar on the Arista release Year of the Cat issued in 1976. Their partnership extended nearly two decades and encompassed White’s co-writing of the hit single “Time Passages,” which reached number seven on the pop chart and number one on the adult-contemporary chart in fall 1978, as well as co-production of Famous Last Words on Mesa/Rhino in 1993.

Around 1979 White settled in Los Angeles, where Stewart had already relocated, assembled the band Shot in the Dark with fellow former Stewart sidemen, and launched the publishing imprint Lobster Music. Concurrently, brother Danny formed Matt Bianco, whose lineup featured vocalist Basia Trzetrzelewska; Danny and Basia later departed to pursue her solo career. In 1990 Danny invited Peter to tour with the duo just as the guitarist issued his debut solo effort, Reveillez-Vous on Chase, a collection drawn largely from unused material originally composed for Al Stewart. The recording gained favor among jazz and emerging smooth-jazz radio programmers after Epic executive Cliff Gorov introduced White’s music to contemporary jazz outlets. Former Al Stewart drummer Steve Chapman subsequently set aside his sticks to serve as White’s manager. White followed the debut with three Sin-Drome albums, notably 1993’s Promenade and 1994’s Reflections, the latter climbing into the top twenty of the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. During the same period he contributed to projects by Richard Elliot, Warren Hill, Craig Chaquico, Rick Braun, Marc Antoine, Kirk Whalum, and Everette Harp.

White joined the Columbia/Sony roster in 1995 and delivered Caravan of Dreams the next year, an album that attained the number-four position on the Billboard Jazz chart. A succession of well-received releases ensued, including Songs of the Season in 1997 and Perfect Moment in 1998, the latter peaking at number three on the jazz charts. Glow returned him near the summit of those charts in 2001, while Confidential appeared to similar acclaim in 2004. White then revisited favored material from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s on the 2006 collection Playin’ Favourites, followed by the understated Good Day in 2009. Here We Go surfaced in 2012 and incorporated guest contributions from David Sanborn, Andrew Neu, and Kirk Whalum. His fourteenth studio album, the entirely original Smile, arrived in 2014, and the fifteenth, Groovin’ in 2016, presented reinterpretations of classic songs from the 1960s and 1970s. Music for Starlux Airlines reached listeners in 2019, comprising tracks White had first recorded for the Taiwan-based luxury carrier; the album featured the composition “Homeward Bound” with his daughter Charlotte White on violin.