Guitarist Johnny sliding into city on his Roots UK tour

A FEW tunes from a future project might just slip into the set when Johnny Dickinson - dubbed the most potent slide player in the UK - plays the Chichester Inn, Chichester, on March 16 under the Roots Around The World banner.

Alnwick-based Johnny is contemplating finally realising a project he has been pondering for a while.

“I am still in the process of making a new album that I was going to try to finish last year, but I was on the road so much that I didn’t get a chance to get into the studio.

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“I had started doing some recording, but I am at the point where I feel like shelving it. I have got an idea for something that I am working on now. It’s consuming me!

“I haven’t done an album for four years. I did five in three years. I just seemed to exhaust myself between 2003 and 2006. It was pretty full on. I was touring a lot as well, and I have got four children. We had a new baby at the time. Maybe I just exhausted myself - but I have been gigging a lot.

“But now I want to throw myself into the new project” - a musical celebration and exploration of The Great North Road, the A1 which ran from the GPO in London to the GPO in Edinburgh.

“I was born virtually on the A1. It was the old mailing route, and it is one of the most important roads throughout world history if you look at the impact of the British Empire. It actually predates Roman times. It has been used as a main route in Britain for a long, long time.

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“My whole idea, which I have been putting off for a while, is to do something connected with it.

“I have been doing a lot of reading. I have been taking almost an academic approach to it, trying to read up as much as I can about the history of it.

“I have also had my own personal experiences of it as I do spend a hell of a lot of time driving up and down it!”

The album is likely to touch on the highwaymen, on the coaching industry and on the coaching inns.

“There are one or two tunes that I have been working on for this project that I might play for Chichester.”

The gig starts at 8.30pm. Tickets from 01243 774641 or www.wegottickets.com.