Steve was surrounded by his loving family at home at his end of life on 17 March 2024. The best place he could have wished for. Next to working his songs and sharing it with the world in masterful style on stage, the two places closest to his heart. He also loved the horse racing world by way of a relaxing distraction from professional life.

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When we toured, it was art, history, places and the adventure ahead. His tireless energy in pursuit of these things with such plans of future must have been heartbreaking when realising they can no longer continue although Steve could be stoic at moments of diversity. Never before had Steve cancelled or missed a show. He was committed to deliver the best. He surrounded himself with appropriate personnel who would represent him in this.

I was honoured to be invited into his world over 40 years ago. We were bonded through music. Steve’s magnificent songs using emotive imagery in pop music struck me first hearing the Psychomodo album and with a violin too; it was an ideal vehicle for me to jump in, Steve drove.

Unique in pop world of music, he’d wince at being tagged “glam rock”when 50 years ago Steve found fame with his first band, Cockney Rebel. They may have been theatrical but, (fancy dress has always been in pop world), the band’s music reached a far wider style than “glam rock”. In Abbey Road studios with orchestra and choir aged 21 years, kick started his broad palette more progressively. His love of literature and language also base for inspiration. It had to be of particular and high quality to ever sit alongside his music. These were high standards he set.

Stuart Elliott remained ‘first call’ musician from that first line-up. We’d often remark on how fine a musical experience we’d be on when working with Steve. It is not just ‘songs’, not like working with anyone else, this molten musical improvisation would pour from the song material, Steve steering the audience, elevated to their feet by the end of each and every show, without fail. “Job done” Steve and I would nod with such pride returning to the dressing room. It had to be “special” another description and a unique privilege performed and delivered every time. On “Come Back All is Forgiven” European tour then just on violin back in 1988 Cockney Rebel, I don’t think we ever worked out an ending for several songs, “Make Me Smile” and “Tumbling Down” songs come to mind. Steve would conduct the audience to join him in choruses then lights down and blackout.

The band morphed from Cockney Rebel, known as the rock band, so that he could carry on offering venues a ‘different package’. He’d started stripped down line-ups in duos with Nick Pynn, later Robbie Gladwell and Jim Cregan. Next came the trio with James Lascelles. The trio worked a great deal around UK & Europe followed by his latest generation, The Steve Harley Acoustic Band as it became billed, with David Delarre and Oli Hayhurst formed from the last and final album “Uncovered”. He was so proud of this recording so was I and Matt Butler, his producer. He brought in Martin Simpson and along with myself as key instrumentalists was given carte blanche in the studio. In live performances he’d let me go, exploring inventive possibilities. He was like that with all of us musicians, sometimes to bursting point to see how far we could go. Many enduring fans know “The Lighthouse”, and extended violin solo to name but one piece. Sadly the longevity of touring “Uncovered” was cut short when Steve was taken ill so cancelling shows from September 2023 onwards. Our last show together was The Palace Theatre, Newark 30 June 2023.

He reliably informed me I’d performed more shows than any other musician but perhaps more significant were the charitable fundraising events like Macmillan nurses, the London Hospital of Neurology or the launch of the Lucy Blackman Trust, just to mention a few. I so admired this skill and use of his fame to such effect, like auctioning his own guitars from stage to the audience, even literally, his shirt off his own back to raise huge funds to donate.

Steve was generous, charitable and loving and I was welcomed into his family.Energy, charisma, knowledge and compassion, pub quiz on the tour bus, list goes on, evermore missed. Such encouragement and integrity learned from a self taught musician, never stopping to push music making and performance further in which I was fortunate to play an integral part. The intuitive natural expression from his chosen musicians along with his technicians, production managers, tour managers, promoters, venues and friends and of course family, we are united and rewarded.

We had purpose and meaning, we will search for another; tragically no longer with Steve Harley. R.I.P. our dear friend.