Rod Clements

Rod Clements is best known as the co-founder of Lindisfarne and the author of such songs as "Meet Me on the Corner" and "Road to Kingdom Come." As a bassist and singer, he has played with artists and groups as different as Ralph Mctell, Peter Hammill, and Pentangle. Born Roderick Parry Clements in 1947 in North Shields, England, he was an only child, and grew up in a household in which neither parent was especially active musically, though his mother played the piano. His father was a huge fan of classical music, however, and saw to it that the younger Clements attended numerous concerts. From an early age, he showed an ability to pick up a tune, even on a child's plastic saxophone, and play it. He reached his teens in 1960, as the first wave of home-grown rock & roll in England was about to crest, and gravitated toward the guitar -- he got his first six-string acoustic at age 13, and at 15 briefly took piano lessons at school. His initial inspiration to play music came from the guitar instrumentals of Duane Eddy and The Shadows, among others. He also discovered, in the course of singing hymns at services, that he had an innate ability to harmonize a difficult melody.

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