Bradford's globe-trotting concert pianist John Briggs is now whizzing round the world on his personal computer. He's been receiving manuscript copies of Italian songs by e-mail, prior to recording them in Genoa this month for his 15th CD. Jim Greenhalf reports.

MORE THAN 12 years had passed since I last interviewed 'El Estupendo' of the keyboard at his home in East Morton.

It was the end of September, 1987, and John Briggs was about to make his debut at New York's Carnegie Hall. Now fast-forward to the other week. Big John was looking forward to recording a CD of Italian songs with 'Tenor Supremo' Fabio Armiliato for the Milan-based record company Kicco Classics.

We do the photographs first and then retire to his new blue kitchen, which 12 years ago used to be a garage, to drink the coffee made by his mother Gladys.

She's a kindly but redoubtable 80-year-old widow who sews with delicacy and precision, refuses to take nonsense from public officials and drives herself about. As her son and I sit down to talk about his Italian job she leaves for Leeds-Bradford Airport to collect John's wife Ruby, returning from an away-day to Las Vegas.

John Briggs and Fabio Armiliato have been e-mailing one other almost daily since September 1998, when the former heard the latter sing in Verdi's opera A Masked Ball at Vienna's State Opera House.

"He invited us back-stage. I took Gladys. We met his wife and we just got on. It was like I had known him all my life. This will be the first CD we have done, but it won't be the last. I am trying to get him to come and do his first concert in England," said the master of two keyboards.

Why is he so impressed by Armiliato's singing?

"It's difficult to say what somebody's voice does to you. It doesn't happen often in a lifetime. All the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. It's like falling in love, I suppose; there's just something in the voice. People say Maria Callas had that effect, but I never saw her. This has happened to me only twice before; they were both singers.

"Once, when I was a kid in Bingley I heard Robert Darnborough, the tenor. I was 13, but I went round to see him and said 'If you want me to play for you give me a ring.' Three days later he hadn't rung up so I found out where he lived and knocked on the door.

"He said 'I don't need anybody!' Then he threw some music at me and was amazed that I could play the piano. God knows how many concerts Bob and I have done together. He's retired now.

"The other singer was Brigitt Nilsson. I had heard her from being a teenager on record. When YTV asked me to do a series I said 'Yes, providing I can have Brigitt Nilsson on the first programme.' Why should she come for some bloody piano-player that's been idolising her from across the world? We've been friends for 21 years."

The songs which Fabio Armiliato will sing to John Briggs' accompaniment were only available in manuscript form in museums such as the San Carlo Opera House in Naples.

"Fabio got them photo-copied and e-mailed them to me. I print them out and within seconds I have the music at the piano. If I have a query I simply e-mail him and we sort out the problem. Can you imagine how long that would take by post or how difficult it would be by phone?"

He's got a concert engagement in Preston before the recording date. With three videos and 14 CDs to his credit, John Briggs, a professional musician for 30 years, has no starry-eyed illusions about either travelling the world or cutting a disc. The first gets tiresome, the second is subject to unexpected mishaps.

During one recording session a faint but persistent fluttering sound was being picked up by the studio microphones. After much head-scratching technicians discovered a moth trapped in a fitting on the ceiling.

"It's so easy to record with somebody that you feel you know. It's very rare to meet another performer who sees a performance exactly the same as you do. Rehearsals can be very awkward, but if you do click with the person you're working with all the hard work is taken out of it," he added.

I had visions of a couple of weeks in the studio.

"We'll record it in a day," replied JB, shattering my illusions.

How many songs?

"Seventeen! It shouldn't take any longer. I have recorded two albums in a weekend before now. If I can do it I don't see why he can't!"

Keeping the ebullient Briggs on track in the studio must be easier than keeping him focused during an interview. He is one of life's natural raconteurs with a vast fund of stories, gossip and anecdotes.. I only wish I could tell you what he said about Luciano Pavarotti and the golf-cart.

Twelve years ago the view from his house overlooked trees, water and a green hill. Now a yellow machine is gouging out chunks of the countryside for housing.

"There won't be any bloody greenbelt left at this rate!" he said with exasperated feeling.

But I doubt if El Estupendo - a nickname bestowed years ago during a tour of South America, I believe - is ready to follow the example of some of his equally-exasperated friends and leave Bradford. Not yet at any rate.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.