A short overview of Henning Verner's career, in Henning's own words (February 7th, 2008):
"When I left Pan I decided to take an education as an architect, and I have been working with architecture since 1977 – and I still am. Besides I have always been playing music more or less professionally.
In 1975 Michael and I met Roy Richards, and we started ”Survivors” with Jens Rugsted, Anders Gårdmand and kenn Lending on guitar.
About 1979 Thomas joined us instead of Kenn, who at that time started his Blues band. We played till about 1980 when I left Survivors and shortly after Jens left and started ”Rugsted & Kreutzfeldt”. Michael, Anders and I joined R&K about 1981 and toured with them for about two years.
After that I had a break till around 1985 when I joined kenn Lending Blues Band. I played with Kenn for about 12 years. That was a great time with much travelling all over Europe – we even played at the first blues festival in Istanbul!! We played with many great bluespeople –Champion Jack Dupree, Jan Harrington, Luther Allison and others.
In between the blues band I had my own band called ”Default blue” – instrumental blues with a touch of Jazz/funk – nice band. I left Kenns band in the late 90´ties, but kept on playing with them as a substitute – all the travelling became too much.
From 2000 – 2003 I lived and worked in Norway.
In 2006, Kenn and I went to the USA to tour for a month with Rose Hudson, whom we met in Copenhagen. Now I don't play steadily in any groups, but now and then Michael, Jens and I play as a trio at private parties, and now and then Survivors have jobs like the one recently in Mojo."
As of 2008, Henning is currently playing with Kenn Lending's Blues Band - www.lending.dk/ - and performing various gigs here and there once again with Survivors.
From a recent February 2008 Q & A piece for this site, Henning had this to say about his days in Pan:
"We were very young, and it was a strange world at that time 1968 – 1970. To me it was a great experience to meet these very talented people and work with them on a professional basis. As a musician it meant a lot to start out at such a high level. I think we were quite successful while we were together – we had many jobs, but I think it started to fall apart when we started to split up – first I left, then Arne – new people came in and so on – and maybe Robert did not really believe in it anymore. – I am not sure – I was not there. The poor selling of the record - I think it was too ”un-Danish” – if it had come out in France, and other countries it might have sold much more. "Robert was a very nice person, and a fantastic guitar player. I still enjoy very much to hear him play – I cannot think of anybody who can play like him. One thing I remember was his tuning of his guitar – he had many ways of doing that – and many of them he had invented himself. – and these tunings, I think, explains some of his very special sound. I think he was a great singer when he sang in French. I often wonder how much the world has changed since then ('68 – '70). I guess we were sort of pioneers opening new frontiers – I mean we were quite few musicians in those days, and we all had taught ourselves what we knew. Today we have rhythmic music-academies and young musicians are incredibly good – and there are so many of them. But as my friend Jens (Rugsted) once said: I am proud and grateful for having lived in this period."
(PIANO - ORGAN - VIBES)
