Inspired by Jack Kerouac, I eventually went to America with the idea of doing a real life reading of Kerouac's On The Road by hitchhiking across the country. While 'On the Road', I played acoustic sets in many US folk clubs. In LA I met the folk-singer Bob Miles and in New York, Australian singer/songwriter Stuart Ongley. In NY I landed a regular gig at a bar on the West 70's. 

When my visa ran out I headed for London where I got a deal with a small record company, Alexander Records, which mainly distributed American recordings. After doing some recordings at the Manor Studio in Oxford with the folk rock band Fairport Convention, I got a serious approach from a large UK label, Ember Records. I was invited to meet their main producer, Hal Shaper, a man who had written songs for everyone from Frank Sinatra down. Hal and I got on well and it looked like the deal would go ahead. Hal told me that if you got a song recorded by Frank Sinatra, you could forget about it all and retire. He also said a song recorded by Glen Campbell was worth a cottage in the country.

Unfortunately, for various reasons, the great dream didn't happen.

Soon after this I played some solo gigs at The Troubadour Club in London and then reunited with Stuart Ongley, when he came to London. Stuart and I played together in pubs in Oxford, Cornwall and North Devon. Also in London, I co-founded the production company Radio Plan, trading simply as Radio, to coincide with the launch of commercial radio in the UK in 1973. I wrote and produced radio commercials with Radio for various London ad agencies and wrote occasional stories and articles for Honey Magazine. 

I then met the guitarist Russ Shipton and we formed an acoustic duo, doing blues, folk and original songs. I also met UK record producer Austin John Marshall around this time. He named the duo Two Bit Band and got us some concert gigs. He also organised a recording session for Two Bit Band with David Swarbrick, Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks from Fairport Convention to record some original songs. While recording in Shaftsbury Avenue, we were visited by some friends of Austin John's, Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention and Vivian Stanshall from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, which was very exciting.

Although this recording session was successful, Austin John ended up moving to Ireland and the songs were never released. Russ was about to launch his guitar method, Folk Styles of Today, which eventually became The Complete Guitar Player, which went on to become the world's best selling guitar method, with over 1,000,000 copies sold. By this stage I couldn't hang on any longer for fame and fortune in London. To have an adventure, I got a job in the Swedish Merchant Navy as a seaman, signing on for one voyage to the Middle East. The ship arrived in Beiruit the day civil war was officially declared between the Arabs and the Israelis and was stuck there for months. I played my guitar every day for the guys and girls on the ship and dodged bullets and con-artists whenever I could get into Beirut. (It was one of those periods in life that are much better viewed in hindsight.)

I returned to Australia and started writing music and performing around the clubs in Sydney, which resulted in me making some recordings at radio station 2JJ with DJ Sandy McCutcheon, including my song Combination Soup which Sandy often played on his program. Then I teamed up with a wonderful musician called Groove Myers. We formed a duo called Deano and Groove and were very successful as a live act, often playing six nights a week, sometimes in three places a night, around Sydney. Eventually the duo went separate ways and I started writing songs with musician, Andrew Thomas Wilson for ATV/Northern Songs music publishers. I finally had a song released in London when Constant Change, written with Andrew for Edith Bliss, was released there as a single. Another highlight was writing a song with Pat Aulton to promote the Australian movie, The Odd Angry Shot. Pat booked my old friend Terry Hannagan to sing it. It was a great session and a very successful song that was played in cinemas all over Australia.

Another interesting project I became involved in was the protest to save Luna Park in Sydney. I had met the artist Peter Kingston and he asked me to write a song for Luna Park. I performed the song with Peter and Martin Sharp outside Parliament House in Sydney. To attract media attention, we were dressed in clown suits from Martin Sharp's fabulous collection. Around this time, I wrote the song A Whole World of People, which launched SBS Television in Australia and was played every day for years on the station.   

With Andrew Thomas Wilson, I also wrote songs for the ALP and corporate stuff for companies like Mayne to play at their conferences.  Another guy I worked with a lot at this time was the legendary engineer and producer, Spencer Lee. Spence and I produced soundtracks and commercials for JVC, the State Bank, Colgate-Palmolive, Ryvita, Comalco-Alfoil and other companies. I also recorded a few songs with Spencer, helped along by musician and engineer Warwick Bone, but we never managed to get a 'deal'.

In the '90's I got the bug to start playing live again and got a job at Beth's Café in Annandale, Sydney, where I played regularly for a couple of years. Then I went to Melbourne for work reasons and met fellow guitarists, Chris Grosz and Bruce Thomas. We started a band in called The Multi Nationals, named in honour of our National Guitars. Our biggest gig was at The Royal George Hotel in St. Kilda. The Multi-Nationals played together until I returned to Sydney.

Back in Sydney, I approached guitarist and producer Doug Weaver about recording a CD. Doug agreed to produce it and consequently I released Not Really The Blues in 2003. We were helped along by some great musicians, including drummer Mal Wakeford, Bass player, Marshall McAdam and Tuba player, Carolyn 'Cazzbo' Johns. Doug and I also teamed up to play all the songs live at the Frankston International Guitar Festival in Melbourne.

Not Really the Blues was played on many radio shows, including The Planet, Stormy Monday, The Blues is Back, KK's Blues, The Blue Room, The Blues Doctor on Bush Radio in Cape Town South Africa and even on blues shows in the USA and Europe. It is still getting airplay on some stations. Since Not Really The Blues, I have released several CD’s through Bombora Records in Adelaide and my music has grown from its blues roots into all sorts of interesting places.