As a solo guitarist, he had many hits, including Guitar Boogie Shuffle, Apache and Nashville Boogie.

Married to Maggie Weedon, he had two sons, Lionel and Geoffrey, eight grandchildren, and a great-grandson. I played with the Ted Heath Orchestra, the Squadronaires, Harry Gold and his Pieces of Eight, Lou Preger. For example, Winifred Atwell would want a honky-tonk approach, Russ Conway something light, while Frankie Vaughan would want something quite beaty and Ronnie Hilton something else again. I also worked with Stephan Grappelli for several years at Hatchetts Restaurant when he and Django Reinhardt, who was my hero, parted.As a featured soloist with the BBC Show Band, directed by Cyril Stapleton, Weedon could be heard almost daily on the Light Programme throughout the 1950s. After he was discharged from hospital, doctors advised him to avoid smoky dancehalls and nightclubs, so he switched the focus of his career to records, radio and television. He said 'Because the air at Southend when the tide goes out, it's covered in mud, and the air is just as beneficial at Southend as any of the air in Switzerland'. We are approaching the anniversary of his death (April 20, 2012) and I have a horrible feeling that we didn’t make enough of Weedon while we still had him.

Just to pluck a few names out of the air – Brian May, Keith Richards, George Harrison and Eric Clapton.In November 1976, Weedon made number one, for one week, in the UK Albums Chart with 22 Golden Guitar Greats, a compilation album of guitar solos released on the Warwick label.

Weedon and the classical guitarist Julian Bream provided the music for a postwar London production of Lorca's Blood Wedding. I'm the luckiest man in the world, 'cause I get paid for doing something that I love doing and I'd do it for nothing anyway. As well as his hits and TV appearances at a crucial time in modern music history, Weedon's best-known contribution to British guitar style is his tutorial guide Play in a Day, first published in 1957, [4] which many stars claim was a major influence on their learning and playing. I was playing it on all my broadcasts - I was doing a lot of broadcasts, and they hadn't done a broadcast as a solo group at that point. It was the first ever hit guitar record on an English label and the first ever hit guitar record by an English man to get into the Hit Parade.He was seen in Slater's Bazaar, the first TV advertising magazine, and from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s he was a regular in a series of children's shows: Small Time, Tuesday Rendezvous and Five O'Clock Club, with Muriel Young, Wally Whyton and the glove puppet Ollie Beak. Brian May stated: "There's not a guitarist in Britain from my generation who doesn't owe him a great debt of gratitude. According to Clapton, "I wouldn't have felt the urge to press on without the tips and encouragement Bert's book gives you. In his teens during the 1930s, he led groups such as the Blue Cumberland Rhythm Boys, and Bert Weedon and His Harlem Hotshots, before making his first solo appearance at East Ham Town Hall in 1939. It's at the Paris Cinema which is a downstairs studio, he said 'He's here,' and there was a sort of pregnant silence.

In the 1930s and 1940s the guitar was not the ubiquitous instrument it would later become and, Weedon said: "The only time you saw a guitar was in the hands of a cowboy in a western singing Home on the Range. So I still play the Fender, but now I use the Parker guitar as well because it's so light and I can stand up and do the show without bending over, which for an old man is a marvellous asset.He also worked as a session musician on many early British rock and roll and other records for artists such as Adam Faith, Billy Fury and Tommy Steele and worked as an accompanist to visiting American singers such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Nat King Cole. In this revealing discussion, Weedon talks about the origins of his guitar playing, working with a variety of musical greats and, of course, his much-loved book Play In A Day. He broadcast frequently on the variety show Workers' Playtime, appeared with the Big Ben Banjo Band and the Palm Court violinist Max Jaffa and later led the resident band on Easy Beat. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. In those days, I'm talking about the '40s again, it was a killer because they hadn't invented all the drugs that they have now.