No one really. I’ve always been into music ever since I used to baby sit for the people over the road who had the most enormous record collection which included everything from Zappa to the Who, Beatles, Hendrix and more.

I did the usual kind of music stuff in school; first gig I played lead domestos bottle filled with dried peas which laid down the slinky rhythms to one of my all time favourites, Little Donkey. Later I took on tenor recorder duties, we performed at Llandaff Cathedral you know! As I got older I started hanging out at the folk clubs in Cardiff toward the end of the 1970’s and began writing songs.

By the early 1980’s I was playing gigs in Cardiff with a band called Ruth Hurt & the Rockets. We were good but it was "largish fish in a smallish pond" and it did not feel as if we were going anywhere. Still only in my early 20’s and ambitious I moved to London in search of ….well, what everyone who moves to London wants!

After a slow start I eventually put my band "Most People" together and we gigged solidly around London and further afield for two years. We were good but, like most bands who don’t make it, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. People were not really into guitar, bass and drum, power pop like ours. It was all pouting new romantics and Soft Cell. I should have carried on regardless but I got bored and moved on. Meanwhile another nearly band "The Single Factor", mates of old, asked me to help out on guitar. I did many gigs over a few years and we released a single, two singles if you include the Everton Toffee Rap football song. John Peel played us on the radio…..we were impressed anyway.

I’d always kept working at various jobs like running a burger bar, delivering food and even making burgers in a factory. I had become a bit disillusioned with it all by 1985 and took a job supporting people with learning disabilities in Kingston. That’s where I met Jane and we were married in 1987 just before moving to Wiltshire.

I was lucky in Trowbridge to meet my very good buddy Dave Shipp who had his own recording studio. Over the years we have worked together to produce a large collection of my songs which have been performed under various formats; Tim Southern solo singer, Cowtown the four piece band, Cowtown the duo with my good mate Chalky (we still exist today…in our front rooms), Clarksville (we did a video…Making Music Magazine trashed it).

When Jane and I decided to go to Greece it seemed like a great time to package the songs I had, into an album just to give me a product to flog. On a low budget we produced 60 cassettes called "All work and no play…." (later I ran off another 100 which were shipped out to Alonissos - read the diary for details…..of limited sales!!)

My musical career continued when we returned to Cardiff. I got the job of backing vocalist with a hip and happening young band called Flowmotion (you can just about get away with being 40 in a young band if you’re a backing vocalist I feel). We did great gigs and it was fun for about 18 months.

Now it’s just a bit of solo work and a bit of Cowtown duo stuff with Chalky when we feel like it or when we’re asked.