Musician Richie Thorpe is on a mission. Over the last few months, songs from his albums Holding On To Love and Fairy Tales Can Come True have been getting airplay on radio stations across the world, including ones in Ohio and California in the USA and also Australia. He has even spent the last seven days as artist of the week for AJK radio, which is based in Bushey and the 20 tracks from his two albums were played every hour of every day on the station for the whole week.
The 44-year-old, who lives in Brimsdown, east of Enfield, can't believe his success after creating the songs from his very own recording studio, Control Room that he built in his back garden. However, he is now hoping his 70s sound can reach the airwaves of the various BBC radio stations across the country and is determined to get his music played on at least one of them.
He says: "I'm doing well on digital stations across the world at the moment, which is great as so many young people listen to digital radio online on their computers and the telephone.
"Now I'm hoping to get on the BBC radio stations as they are the main stations people in the UK listen to when you drive your car and also online. However I'm not having much luck at the moment as I haven't yet got a response from them.
"I've been trying for quite a long time to get them to notice my recording label, Control Room. My latest album was released last September and the coverage on the different radios started around March and April this year, so my campaign has been since then.
"One of my tracks is called Money That Talks and I feel it is relevant to my situation at the moment, as I'm not signed to a big record label and so cannot really afford to buy airtime, unlike bigger record labels."
Richie developed his albums by himself and as well as singing, he also played all the instruments, including the guitar and piano.
Music has been a life-long passion for him, as he started playing music with his two brothers when he was 11 and at 15-years-old, he appeared on BBC television playing the guitar in a band called Ray Dexter And The Sunsets.
He has also toured the world playing in different bands before deciding that he wanted to do his own thing with his solo music and so settled back in his hometown Enfield, where his passion for performing began after having a musical upbringing.
Richie explains: "My mum Elizabeth sang and played the piano and her father was the band leader of The Eden Theatre, in Bishop Auckland, in Durham, which unfortunately was knocked down in favour of a Tesco some years ago.
"The musical side of my family passed down a generation, as my brother is a violinist and I studied A-Level orchestration at Southgate Technical College. We both made an album with a 34-piece orchestra which was conducted and written by me, so I've packed in a lot of things over the years."
You can download the songs from Richie's albums, Fairy Tales Can Come True and Holding On To Love, from iTunes, CD Baby, Google Play, Amazon and Spotify.
To find out more about Richie, visit: controlroomstudio.wixsite.com