BIOGRAPHY
Keef Hartley is a British musician from Preston, Lancashire. His career began as a replacement for Ringo Starr as a drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, a popular Liverpool band at the time. Keef then played and recorded with The Artwoods and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, before forming his own band, The Keef Hartley Band.

With his own band he released a total of nine albums, the most famous of all being the first album, Halfbreed. Keef studied native American culture and that was reflected in album artwork and in his newly published book. The group played at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. Keef's biggest influence was Buddy Rich and he later formed the Little Big Band which produced one album and appeared in a BBC John Peel session.

After touring the world with both his own band and with John Mayall, Keef engaged in a lot of session work and then left the music business altogether to set-up a joinery and cabinet making business. Without even trying to use his world performer/recording artist status, he started to get business from top recording studios for bespoke furniture often to Keef's own designs. Again, totally by accident, he started working with renowned luthier, Roger Giffin from Giffin Guitars and met up with a lot of old chums who came to Roger for their guitar repairs and supply. On his own admission, he just couldn't keep away from the music business how ever hard he tried!

Keef eventually retired and moved back to the family home in Preston. He still makes the rare occasional appearance and has more recently produced his autobiography "Halfbreed" which is an insight into the first decade of Keef's career.