With his unique finger style and soulful earthy vocals, Dean Haitani draws inspiration from blues & roots music, and his love of funk and old school R&B rhythms.
One of Australian most accomplished guitarist/singer/songwriter, over the last 20 years Dean has toured the US, UK & Europe. His unique sound comes from his experimentation with the technical and his ability to cross many musical genres.
Dean’s has honed the craft of both acoustic & electric guitar and his dynamic live performance comprises of foot percussion, a variety of guitars (running octave, delay, distortion, phaser & wah effects) vocals & harmonica.
Dean is currently touring promoting his 14th studio album “47 stones”. Over the course of more than 20 years, dean has evolved, developed, and challenge himself as a musician. Stylistically, Dean’s music is Roots Music - a melting pot of funky rhythms, jazzy influenced progressions, folk subtleties, country flavours & blues grit. Dean’s band shows range from raw 3 piece to full band(Keys, backup vocals, horn sections, Cello & the list goes on). His music is contemporary, forever pushing the musical envelope, his stories are from his heart & mind with compassion for humanity. “I always try to look at the world in a positive way with all its marvels & flaws”
He has many successes, including US radio play, touring in Europe, Australia and the US as well as supprtinh high profile acts such as James Morrison and Glenn Shorrock in 2018. A number of Dean’s songs have been covered by good friend and award winning blues musician Mark Riley in Seattle USA. Being closely related musically to Van,Morrison, Dave Matthews, Jonathan Butler, Amos Lee, Albert Collins & Dallas Green, Dean is a broad-minded person who is not afraid to cross musical genres.
Dean was born in a small town in Victoria, Australia where his earliest influence was his father, James, played the piano, piano accordion, harmonica player & was an articulate poet, & his mothers voice, “Having a voice of an angel” as Dean describes her.
As a child, Dean was exposed to the music of the 1920’s onwards through his father’s record & reel to reel collections. including country artists such as Hank William's, Slim Whitlam, Willie Nelson, Freddie Fender, old-time honky tonk music and classical & he could also not help being exposed to Japanese music that his mother would sing around the house. Even before Dean was a musician he had a solid grounding for all types of music.
Dean listened to a lot of poplar music on the radio, But it was Dean's first guitar teacher, Steve Brown that introduced Dean to the Blues , giving him a copy of B.B.King's "Live at Cook County"-this introduction had Dean hooked,and led him to listen to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Robert Cray and Jeff Healey. Dean's other major influence was Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits. Dean went on to discover other sorts of music, flamenco, reggae, soul, folk, rock, punk-anything that he could get his hands on. Towards the end of High School, Dean started a band with school friends called "Superstition" and connected with Lee Kernaghan's sister's , Tania and Fiona and played in a trio with them for some time as well as playing in blues bands and solo. at the age of 18 , he moved to Melbourne to pursue the blues scene.
After working in Melbourne's music scene Dean moved around playing in QLD and Sydney and making his mark playing markets, wineries, festivals and continuing his love of busking.
Due to his father being ill, 2012, saw Dean move back to Albury Wodonga (border of NSW and VIC) and joined some duos with old friends. Dean's father passed away that year and his mother 4 years later. Dean then headed over to US and Europe adding to his many years’ experience playing music, touring America and Europe.
Major music influences include: Mark Knofler, Sonny Landreth,Stevie Ray Vaughan,Tommy Emmanuel, Jonathan Butler, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Billy Joel, Les Paul, Charlie Christian, Miles Davis, George Benson, James Peterson, Goanna, Colin Haye, Skunkhour, Lightning Hopkins,Van Morrison, Metallica, Paca Delucia, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Michael Jackson, Paul Carrack, Stevie Wonder, Ani Defranco, Angelique Kidjo, Paul Brady, The Gypsy Kings, The Bondi Cigars etc etc. Modern day influences include Ben Harper, Dave Matthews, Amos Lee, Michael Franti, Dougie Maclean, Scott Henderson, Katchafire, Andrea Bocelli, Dallas Green, Jazon Mraz,Brothers Landreth etc etc.
Here is a list of Dean’s achievements to date………………….
*Induction in to Australian Blues Hall of Fame
*Finalist for Sony BMG songwriting competition
*Australia tour guitarist for UK blues artist: Kyla Brox
*Guitarist for Tania & Fiona Kernaghan Kernaghan
*Vic/Tas Blues Awards
*Frankston Guitar Festival
*Bay Of Islands Blues Festival
*Bridgetown Blues Festival
*Bruthen Blues Festival
*Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival
*Support for Ian Moss, Dutch Tilders, The Choir Boys, Steedy Eddy
AIRPLAY. ABC Radio National, PBS, RRR, 3CR, Texas Blues Café,Argentina, Chicago,Japan