Gary Radford is a Full Professor in the Department of English, Communication, and Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey and a founding father of The Professors. Gary was trained on classical guitar in England since the age of 13. He achieved Grade 5 proficiency, won the Classicial Guitar division of the Mansfield Music and Drama Festival on numerous occasions, and performed regulary in school concerts.

In 1979, Gary was a founding member of Sosostris, a band in the style of Genesis and Pink Floyd but which played original numbers (not quite as good as Genesis or Pink Floyd). The name "Sosostris" was derived from the name of a character in T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Madame Sosostris, the gypsy fortune teller. Our grand ambition was to do a musical version of "The Waste Land" - can you imagine that? Click here for one of the few surviving photos of Sosostris's second gig performed at the undercroft of St. Modwen's church in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, on September 27, 1980.

Gary also played in The Alley Cats, a jazz band with trumpet, clarinet, and french horn that played a variety of jazz, swing, and big band music.

Since coming the United States in 1986, Gary has discovered the joy of the American Blues. Gary plays a 1979 Les Paul Custom "Silverburst" and an Alvarez nylon string classical guitar. His original songs performed by The Professors include:

• Untenured Blues (with Marie Radford)
• The Bottle (with Ian Marshall)
• Treachery (with Marie Radford)
• Foucault Funk: The Michel Foucault Postmodern Blues (with Marie Radford, Stephen Cooper, and Michel Foucault)

And with the amazing John Barrows, Gary was co-writer on:

• To Hear You Say It
• Run Away With Me
• Christie, Are You Out There?
• Nobody Likes Happy Songs
• Cold Snap
• Crisis of Confidence
• (You Won't Hear This on the) Hyatt Elevator
• Dreading the Dawning

Gary's professional website can be found at http://alpha.fdu.edu/~gradford.