THE Piano Man who gets people in the mood for a melody is leaving Bermuda for six months to play in Europe.

Pianist Wayne Davis, who has been playing music professionally since 1972, leaves Bermuda from October to April and travels around Europe and Asia during the winter months performing at various hotels and piano bars and on cruise ships.

Mr. Davis was born into a musical family in Somerset. When his sister Joann took up piano at a young age he became fascinated by the instrument and taught himself to play. At age 14, he played organ in his first band, Electric Love, with his brother Reggie who played bass.

Mr. Davis said: "I am self-taught playingwise, but I did some formal theory and harmony with Bermuda music teacher Joseph Richards, who has passed on now.

"He was one of the masters who taught people like famed Bermuda musicians Lance Hayward, Reggie Goater and Norman Astwood. He taught a lot of the old masters here."

In 1985 Mr. Davis started the legendary Bermuda band Twice, the fourth band started by Mr. Davis, and would play for seven years to packed audiences at the old Cock and Feather pub on Front Street.

For the last 18 years during the summer season he has been playing at the Elbow Beach Hotel, a job he says he loves because of the constant interaction with tourists.

In 1999 he started touring Europe during Bermuda's winter months and has been tickling the ivories overseas ever since.

Speaking with the Mid-Ocean News this week, Mr. Davis said: "I fancy myself as a jazz and blues musician but more often than not I have to play whatever is required. From R&B to pop to standards and everything else, I play whatever the crowd wants.

"When I started travelling I was already in the twilight years of my career. I wasn't looking to be discovered or anything like that. I just wanted to see as much of the world as I could."

Mr. Davis, 50, described his touring schedule and some of the perks involved with playing in deluxe hotels: "When I tour it's sort of like a paid vacation. Usually I leave for around five months during the winter. This year I'll be doing six months. I will start by going to Russia for three months and then to Bangkok, Thailand for three months.

"When I play at hotels in Europe they always put me up at the hotel. When you are staying in a five-star hotel it's a really nice thing."

Mr. Davis explained where his tours have taken him in the past and some of the challenges involved with touring in non-English-speaking countries.

"When I travel usually I go all over Europe," explained Mr. Davis. "I go to such places as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Poland, and Russia and last year I was in Singapore for three months.

"Going to non-English-speaking countries was a bit intimidating at first, but I'm used to it now. I find it interesting trying to communicate and I love to get into and embrace cultural differences."

Mr. Davis said that countries that are business hubs have a lot of people who speak English, adding: "In places like Russia, where there is a high volume of business, everyone speaks English because English is the connecting language to commerce.

"On any given night you could have a business meeting with Russians, Japanese and Germans at one table and they are all speaking the common language they all know, which is English.

"So it's not a problem at all to go to non-English-speaking countries because you invariably run into people that do speak the language."

Mr. Davis has an agent who gets him his gigs overseas and explained how he met his agent.

"I get the gigs through my agent who works for an agency called the Entertainment Agency out of Boston. I met my agent years ago when there was a pianist, Kathy Frye, playing in Bermuda who was repped by him," said Mr. Davis.

"We were hanging out swapping musical ideas and he came over to visit while she was here. She introduced me to him and about ten years after that I called him up and told him I was planning on going over to Europe to hang out.

"He asked me to send him a promo package with photos and tapes of me playing. About a month after that he had me booked for my very first overseas tour in Ireland, Germany and Switzerland. I was well received and it's been straight ahead ever since then.

"My most memorable venue I've had was when I was working in Germany in 2000. My agent called and said there was going be a showcase of piano players in Zurich which was only an hour away from where I was working at the time.

"He said a lot of agents and club owners would be there and said it would be worthwhile to go there. I was still fairly new at playing solo so I said, 'I'll go'. When I arrived I walked in the place and there were these guys from all over the world such as Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Russia and most of them were half my age."

Mr. Davis talked about being intimidated at the showcase: "After hearing the first three players I thought I was in way over my head and I was looking for the back door. I thought these kids were way better than I was ever going to be but I said to myself, 'I made the effort to come here, I might as well stay and play. I will use my brain along with my talent.'

"The first thing I realised about the other performers was that the club owners were not as impressed with these guys as I was. The next thing I realised was that they were playing for each other and trying to outdo the person who came before them. I found they were getting too musically involved for the average audience and then I noticed that most of them were playing three or four songs at the most."

Mr. Davis devised a unique solution to conquer the competition. "What I decided to do was play short versions of whatever song I was playing, with verse chorus and out and on to the next song. I also decided to play to the audience instead of the other piano players.

"And lastly, I decided to play a style that nobody else has done yet so that when I go up I can introduce something new and unique. I played a calypso song, a reggae song and a country and western song along with the rest of my routine that had the typical R&B and pop.

"In the 20 minutes I had I played 13 songs and I went right across everything from Sinatra to Marley to Hendrix. When I finished playing the agents came running up asking who my agent was and how they could book me.

"That was the greatest musical moment in my life because I was thrown in with the wolves and I came out on top. From thereon my confidence went up and I said, 'Okay, I can do this'."

Mr. Davis said that if he could change the Bermuda nightlife scene he would "like to see someone here in Bermuda open up a piano bar because it's a great concept and everyone always has a great time".

When asked if he would tour longer than six months, Mr. Davis said: "I love to travel every winter. It's the best move I've ever made and I love it.

"My agent wants me to stay on the road during the summer, and I've thought about it, but I like being home in the summer."