Stu Page

A country-rock singer and guitarist, he was best known for fronting the Stu Page Band and also Eagles tribute act The B-Eagles.

Born on May 12, 1954 in Leeds, he was the second son of Handley and Maisie Page, a skilled toolroom fitter and a seamstress.

Having moved to Pudsey at the age of six, he sang in the local church choir and was given his first guitar as a Christmas present at the age of 10.

He learned to play it in a class run by veteran jazz player Len Lewis on the top floor of Kitchens music shop in Leeds, “dodging the drunks and scary characters to get to my lesson”.

By the time he was 16 he already had many paid gigs under his belt and had travelled around the UK in a three-piece rock/blues outfit called the Gritt Band. Then one day he received a phone call from a sound engineer who worked at the local radio station, asking if he would fill in on guitar for an American band who were recording some music for the station.

Three months later he had quit his day job at the local print factory and was flying out to America to join the band, which was led by country-folk singer Warren Wilkinson.

A stint with a covers band followed before he returned to the UK, performing on the country music scene with Whistler, fronted by a Liverpudlian singer-songwriter called John Rigby, and later
 with Leeds-based Midnight
 Flyer.

In 1984 he went to Switzerland to work in a hotel complex as part of a duo with fellow musician Terry Clayton. When they returned the pair used the money they had saved to launch a country music band. As the Stu Page Band they were together, apart from a few line-up changes, for some 20 years, recording seven albums and playing with countless American country stars. The group appeared on UK television and toured most countries in Europe, including making an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall.

With the aid of fellow guitar player and band member
Andy Whelan he then put together an Eagles tribute
band called The B-Eagles. The group toured constantly for a decade.

More recently he had teamed up with his son Tom on guitar and vocals, playing shows together as a duo.

Last December, he suffered a broken back after falling on ice after a concert.

He underwent surgery on a broken vertebrae but a subsequent scan on his back found he was suffering from lung cancer.

The condition progressed quickly and he died at Wheatfields Hospice in Headingley, Leeds, last Sunday.