Ed Sheeran - Sean Smith

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John and Imogen made a deal involving the ‘currency of the day’ because, during the next summer holidays, Ed set off with his father on a train to Girvan on the Ayrshire coast for a five-day summer workshop. Preston had moved to this beautiful part of Scotland, fifty miles south of Glasgow, from his home in Minneapolis in 2001.

      This was not a holiday for Ed, although he and his father managed to fit in a boat trip to Ailsa Craig, the famous granite island in the Firth of Clyde. Preston was impressed by Ed’s work ethic, unusual in one so young: ‘He was intelligent and quick; he very quickly picked up the things he had come up to learn. Even at fourteen, you could tell he had a real determination and ambition.’

      The trip was made more memorable for Ed by the presence of the only other student on the trip, an amazing guitar player from Oklahoma called Jocelyn Celaya, who would develop a strong following in subsequent years as Radical Classical. Jocelyn had arrived with her boyfriend, who told everyone that he used to be a gangster in Mexico. Ed, who was enthusiastic about gangsta rap at the time, couldn’t believe he was face to face with a real one and bombarded him with questions. On the last night, everyone got together for a party and Preston played some of his own compositions including ‘Fat Boy’, ‘Metal’ and ‘Ladies Night’. Ed entertained everyone by making up rap lyrics to accompany the music. ‘He just rattled it off,’ recalled Preston. ‘It was quite funny and impressive as well.’

      On his return to Framlingham, Ed was not about to become the second Preston Reed but the interlude helped him view the acoustic guitar as more than just a stringed instrument. Preston’s technical innovations showed him ‘the music you could make using the guitar as a source of sounds’. Ed absorbed that lesson from his trip to Scotland and would use it in his own way when he was introduced to an even more important character in his development as a performer.

      But, first, he had to go back to school. Ed was fortunate in that it wasn’t just his mum and dad who recognised he had a special talent and could make something of his music. The director of music at Thomas Mills, Richard Hanley, realised early on that the teenager was different from his other students and needed a more thoughtful approach. Richard specialised in classical music and was more closely involved with teaching Matthew, but he followed the headmaster’s lead and gave all his students the opportunity to flourish. That was the key for Ed, who has always acknowledged the debt he owes his school.

      At first, Richard was hoping to persuade Ed to follow his brother and join the school orchestra, but soon discovered he was persevering with the cello on sufferance. Ed was relieved to give it up and concentrate on the guitar. He could often be found in one of the small practice rooms in the music department working on a new song. Richard explains, ‘I think the school gave him the chance to be creative, to have the time and space to play and compose and perform.’ His passion for his music was all-consuming.

      Ed was never going to match Matthew’s academic dedication. Even Imogen acknowledged that her younger son was not an exam person and struggled to apply himself to read music properly. In many ways, though, Matthew was the more eccentric of the two talented brothers. Richard acknowledges that Matthew was very creative as well as academic: ‘He had some quite avant-garde ideas.’ One Easter he composed ‘Broken Pavements’ for the school concert at St Michael’s: ‘It was a very atmospheric piece. I can still remember the sunlight pouring through the great east window at the church illuminating the players. It was a magical moment.’

      As teenagers, the two Sheeran boys were totally different. They had their own groups of friends and just did their own thing. For a time, Keith Krykant taught Matthew as well: ‘He particularly wanted to know about jazz improvisations. He was very mathematical in his music and was very interested in theory. He wanted to know how the notes added up mathematically to give a certain chord.

      ‘He wanted to consolidate some of the things he was doing on the piano and understand how they related to the guitar. He used to compose on a computer and had a much more mechanical approach to that than Ed, who was more interested in getting a song out with a rhythm and a melody.’ In his own way, Matthew was just as ambitious as Ed: he wanted to establish himself as a classical composer. The two boys never fell out but, as Keith remembers with a smile, ‘They never used to speak to each other in the house.’

      Keith was still trying to teach Ed some music theory but he was fighting a losing battle. Every week he would arrive at the house with a careful plan for the lesson with ‘Edward’ – as he always called him, just as his parents did. He explains, ‘I would decide that we would take a piece of music – pure music notation – and I would explain to him how we would get that on to a guitar. It is quite tedious. And we maybe would get five minutes into the theory and he wasn’t really interested in it. He would suddenly say, “Oh, Keith, do you want to hear a song that I wrote last night at one o’clock in the morning?” And I would say, “OK.” So he would start playing this song. And ask me, you know, “What do you think of this?” And I might suggest that he put something extra in just to bridge the chords – harmony, if you like. And if he liked it, he would light up and go, “Wow, that really works now. Keith, you’re a genius!”’

      Ed was showing great maturity for his age in what he was listening to and what he wanted to play. His father’s taste had rubbed off on him. He still wanted to enjoy his favourite hip-hop artists but, post Damien Rice, he was developing more interest in singer–songwriters such as Ray LaMontagne, whose debut album, Trouble, in 2004, had showcased his distinctive vocal style, as well as all-time greats, including Paul Simon. He spent an entire lesson with Keith learning how to play the famous Simon and Garfunkel hit ‘Sound of Silence’.

      ‘You could see that he liked songs with strong melodies,’ observes Keith. ‘Most of the kids at the time were listening to The X Factor, which had just started, and following that, but he was appreciating other things.’

      Another of Ed’s characteristics that served him well as a teenager was his lack of fear. He was appreciative but not overawed by the occasion. He took meeting Preston Reed in his stride. On another memorable occasion John and Imogen had arranged a dinner party where the guests included the local vicar. Keith and his wife were there: ‘Edward sang a ballad in the front room in front of the vicar and everybody else in a very, very confident and emotional way. It was very mature because he was only fourteen. It was extraordinary. Most of the children I teach won’t ever sing or play in front of their mum and dad. In fact they will play in front of anyone else but their mum and dad. But his mum and dad were there and he sang this song and completely held the audience – except the vicar, who can’t stand guitar music.’

      The priest might not have appreciated being in the audience for a concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in January 2006. The modest Sunday-night gig would change the course of Ed’s life as a performer. He and his dad had driven to London to see Nizlopi, an unconventional duo who had just had a number-one hit with their ‘JCB Song’. He was transfixed, though, by the opening act, an Irish singer–songwriter called Gary Dunne.

      Gary used a Boss Loop Station and it was the first time Ed had witnessed how exciting that could be live. Gary built a song that filled the popular venue even though he was alone. He performed five numbers finishing with his ‘Amerikan Folk Song’, which Ed singled out as the track that had made him realise looping was the way forward for him to create his own individual sound. The musician plays a few bars, then has the loop station play it back while he lays another set of chords over the top. This can be done multiple times building layers of sound. In other words, you become your own band.

      Gary did his best at performing the often thankless task of being a supporting act when the audience were standing around chatting and having a pint. He made a point of plugging his album, Twenty Twenty Fiction, which was on sale at the merchandise desk in the foyer. He also announced that he did house concerts, if anyone was interested.

      Ed couldn’t stop talking to his dad about the loop pedal so John wrote to Gary saying, ‘My son absolutely loved what you did,’ and inviting him to Framlingham for Ed’s fifteenth-birthday party in a few weeks’ time.

      ‘House concerts’ were part of Gary’s musical world. They enabled him to earn extra pennies when he

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