About Dean Haitani

Dean was born in a small Victorian town in Australia.

Dean's earliest influences where his father, James, who played the piano, harmonica and piano accordion.
His mother was also a good singer but both parents never played music professionally.

At the age of four, Dean was exposed to a whole array of music in his father's tape collection, country artists such as Hank William's, Slim Whitlam, Willie Nelson,Freddie Fender etc, old-time honky tonk music, classical etc etc.
Dean listened to a lot of music on the radio, pop music and Australian bands such as Cold Chisel, Goanna, Paul Kelly etc etc.

It was Dean's first guitar teacher, Steve Brown that introduced Dean to the Blues , giving him a copy of B.B.King's "Live at Cook County"-this introduction to the first had Dean hooked, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Robert Cray, Jeff Healey etc etc etc followed.

Dean's other major influence was Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits.

Dean went on to discover other sorts of music, flamenco, reggae, soul, folk, rock, punk-anything that he could get his hands on.

Towards the end of High School, Dean started a band with school friends called "Superstition" (after SRV's Stevie Wonder Cover).
"Superstition" played most of the school functions and locals bars and community festivals.

Through Dean's local music shop, Dean got connected to Lee Kernaghan's sister's , Tania and Fiona and played in a trio with them for some time.

Dean started playing in blues bands and solo at the age of 18 and moved to Melbourne to pursue the blues scene.

After 5 years working in Melbourne's music scene and making little money, Dean decided to moved North to QLD because the state was booming financially .Dean spent 6 years in QLD before moving to Sydney, playing markets,wineries, wedding's, pubs, restaurants, festivals and busking.

Due to his father being ill, 2012, saw Dean move back to Albury Wodonga (border of NSW and VIC) and joined some duo's with old friends.
Dean's father passed away that year and his mother 4 years later.

Dean now resides around the Northumberland, UK with hopes of frequently visiting USA for music.

Dean has many years of playing music in all sorts of situations-touring America and Europe, New Zealand and Fiji,.

Dean is in the process of recording music for TV, etc and continuing writing and producing new albums.
A new blues album is scheduled in April, 2016 in Australia.

*Finalist for Sony Bmg songwriting competition

*Australia tour guitarist for Uk blues artist: Kyla Brox

*Guitarist for Tania & Fiona Kernaghan Kernaghan

*Vic/Tas Blues Awards

*Frankston Guitar Festival

*Bay Of Islands Blues Festival

*Bridgetown Blues Festival

*Bruthen Blues Festival

*Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival

*Support for Ian Moss, Dutch Tilders, The Choir Boys, Steedy Eddy!!!, etc etc

*Met.Taj Mahal,Joe Lewis Walker, Tommy Emmanuel,Ian Moss, Troy Casser Daley, Cole Joye,Phil Manning, etc etc.

AIRPLAY. ABC Radio National, PBS, RRR, 3CR, Texas Blues Caf�,Argentina, Chicago,Japan


Return to profile



asdf