Roy Stannard and Nick Potter getting ready to share some more guitar music

An unlikely musical partnership has emerged from a chance encounter between radio commercial manager and presenter Roy Stannard and carpet estimator Nick Potter who works at the Rustington branch of Tapi Carpets.

Nick Potter arrived at Roy Stannard’s house in Burgess Hill early in 2015 to measure up for a carpet fitting but the conversation quickly turned to music when he found out that in addition to being a regional manager with the More Radio Group, Roy hosts a weekly radio programme on East Sussex radio station, Seahaven FM 96.3. It turned out that Nick is a blues and rock guitar fan with a vast knowledge of the back catalogues of some of the best guitar players – and has a particular favourite in the form of Robin Trower, who hails from Southend which is Roy’s home town. When Roy mentioned that he had been to the next door school to Trower and used to travel on the same bus in Southend as Wilko Johnson, the conversation deepened and Roy invited Nick to put a list together of the all-time great guitar tracks by the best musicians to form the basis of the very first Guitar Greats Radio special on 16^th April 2015.

Three years later and Nick and Roy have presented thirteen shows together with the 14^th planned for the 25^th October this year.

By day Nick works for Tapi Carpets, Rustington, but by night roams the land in pursuit of the wailing solo, the guitar shredding technique and the finger-picking good guitar break. A connoisseur of licks, lines and lead pyrotechnics, Nick is an expert on guitar legends live and on record in the South. He and his wife who live in Rustington spend a good deal of their spare time going to live music gigs across the South and this love has been passed on to his daughter who also likes rock music.

His manager Daryl Short is delighted to be getting lots of indirect publicity on the radio. He says “Nick is an excellent estimator. Like many others in the company he came to us after many years at Carpetright and has proven to be a great success with the customers who like his engaging manner and years of carpet expertise. He and another employee here Liam Perry are both guitar fanatics and let each other know about the latest emerging players. We love tuning in to listen to Nick and Roy on the radio as we usually get a mention!”

Tapi Carpets MD Martin Harris, son of Lord Harris who founded Carpetright is pleased that the company is forging a reputation for musical knowledge as well as floorcovering excellence. “Our Manager Daryl at Rustington thinks highly of Nick and this is a perfect example of how a chance encounter has led to great publicity for the company – simply because of the customer relationship building that we encourage amongst our staff.”

Note:

Seahaven FM is a not-for-profit Community radio station based in Seaford serving an 80,000 TSA that covers Seaford, Newhaven, Peacehaven and Lewes. Roy’s Show ‘The Whole Nine Yards’ broadcasts live every Thursday 7-9pm and can be heard on FM locally 96.3 and on the internet on www.seahavenfm.com and past shows including the thirteen Guitar Great specials with Nick Potter at http://www.mixcloud.com/roystannard

The latest show – The Nick Potter Guitar Greats Special Vol XIII was broadcast across two hours on Seahaven FM on the 31st May and can be listened to via these links: