| David Gray |
| Background information |
| Birth name |
David Peter Gray |
| Born |
June 13, 1968 (1968-06-13) (age 39) |
| Origin |
Sale, England |
| Genre(s) |
Rock
Alternative
Folk
rock |
| Occupation(s) |
Singer-songwriter |
| Instrument(s) |
Vocals
Piano
Guitar |
| Years active |
1993 - present |
| Label(s) |
Eastwest
(UK) / RCA (US)
Iht (UK) / ATO (US)
Hut
(UK) / Caroline (US) |
| Website |
http://www.davidgray.com/ |
David Gray (born June 13, 1968 in Sale) is an English singer-songwriter
who came to mainstream
recognition with his 1998 album White
Ladder.
|
Contents
- 1 Early
career
- 2 Breakthrough
- 3 Recent
career
- 4 Musical
direction
- 5 The
Venus in Furs
- 6 Gray's
songs in film and television
- 7 Band
- 8 Discography
- 8.1 Studio
albums
- 8.2 Compilations
- 8.3 Virtual
albums
- 8.4 Singles
- 9 See
also
- 10 External
links
|
Early career
Gray moved from Manchester to Wales at the age of
nine. He grew up in the small coastal town of Solva in Pembrokeshire
and attended the Carmarthenshire College of Art. He later moved to the
north-west of England to attend the University of Liverpool.
His musical career received early support from a dedicated Republic
of Ireland fan base. At an early gig in Ireland, Gray was introduced by
comic playwright Pat Ingoldsby.
Gray's first two albums A
Century Ends and Flesh
were issued in 1993 and 1994 respectively and led to Gray becoming
popular in folk-rock circles, but both failed to do any serious
business in terms of commercial sales.
In 1996 Gray released his third album, Sell,
Sell, Sell. With his first two albums having
been entirely comprised of acoustic folk music, this was his first
mature exhibition and saw him use his now-trademark blend of folk,
alternative rock and electronics for the first time. Despite critical
acclaim, the album did not chart, but the song "Late Night Radio"
received some airplay on alternative UK radio stations and nearly
became Gray's first hit single.
Breakthrough
The UK folk-rock scene had known about Gray for some time
before his breakthrough into the pop mainstream in 2000, but after a
few marginally successful releases through the 1990s, Gray's
breakthrough came with the worldwide release of his fourth album,
White
Ladder, in 1998. This was a critical and
commercial success and included his best-known songs: "This Year's
Love", "Babylon" and "Please Forgive Me". In
August 2000, "Babylon" hit #5 in the UK singles chart; it remains his
biggest UK hit to date. In the United States, the album
received a boost from jam-band leader Dave
Matthews, who made it the first release by ATO
Records, the record company he co-founded. Babylon
was also the first of three US chart entries for Gray to date. In
Ireland, White Ladder remains the biggest-selling
album ever.
On August
11, 2001, White
Ladder finally reached the top of the UK
albums chart, on the back of the single success of "Babylon" (a remixed
and edited version for radio, which omitted the third verse
completely). The album had been selling steadily since its reissue the
previous May, thereby setting a new record for the longest
uninterrupted climb to Number One. The year 2001 also saw the
release of two compilations of Gray's early works and unreleased
material, The EPs 1992-1994
and Lost Songs 95-98,
both of which followed White Ladder into the UK
album chart Top Twenty.
In November 2002, Gray released the follow-up to White
Ladder, entitled A
New Day at Midnight. The new release did not
receive the same critical acclaim as its predecessor, but still went
straight in at Number One, famously beating Pop Idol runner-up Gareth
Gates' debut album "What My Heart Wants To Say" to the summit
and selling nearly fifteen thousand copies in its first week of
release; it went on to reach platinum status within a year and was the
second-biggest selling album by a UK artist in 2002. A New
Day At Midnight spawned two further UK Top 30 hits in "The
Other Side" and "Be Mine" and a minor US hit with "Dead in the Water".
Recent career
After a three year hiatus which saw him wind down his
recording and touring schedule due to exhaustion, Gray returned with
his seventh album, Life in Slow Motion
in September 2005, which, like its predecessor, also hit the top of the
UK album chart in its first week of release. After the much-criticised A
New Day At Midnight, Life in Slow Motion
was hailed as a return to form by many critics. Lead single "The One I Love" was
a Top Ten hit in the UK in October 2005 and spent three months in the
UK chart. Following the relative commercial failure of follow-up
singles "Hospital Food" and "Alibi", Gray again
went into hiatus during 2006.
In March 2007, Gray released the compilation album Shine: The Best
of the Early Years.
On 7
July 2007, Gray performed with Damien Rice at the UK leg of Live Earth
at Wembley Stadium in London. On the
same day, Gray also announced via his website that he will release
another album entitled A Thousand Miles Behind, a
compilation CD of live covers, in August 2007 via CD and digital
download.
Musical direction
Gray's early music was in a contemporary folk-rock,
singer-songwriter mode; his primary instrument was acoustic guitar, with
occasional piano.
1996's Sell, Sell, Sell
featured some rock arrangements and electric instrumentation. Starting
with the release of White Ladder, Gray began to
make significant use of computer-generated music to accompany his voice
and acoustic instrumentation, a technique which differentiates him from
many of his peers. Despite the move to more complex music, Gray has
used small-scale, often home-based recording methods and equipment and
espoused a "do
it yourself" approach to music production. However, Life
in Slow Motion is a collaboration with noted
producer Marius De Vries.
The Venus in Furs
The band "Venus in Furs" (named after the Velvet
Underground song whose title and lyrics in turn reference a novel of
that name by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch)
was formed in 1998 for the film Velvet
Goldmine. Gray provided vocals in the band
which also included Thom Yorke (Radiohead),
Jonny Greenwood(Radiohead),
Andy Mackay (Roxy Music), Bernard
Butler (Suede band), Paul Kimble.
Gray's songs in film and
television
Gray's music has been featured in many films and television
shows:
- The song "Disappearing World" from Life in Slow
Motion was prominently featured on the TV series Smallville
in fall 2005 and "Standoff" in the end sequence of "Episode 1x05 - Life
Support", which first aired on October 31, 2006.
- "The One I Love" from Life in Slow Motion
was featured in the season finale of the third season of Rescue
Me, which aired on August 29, 2006.
- "Alibi" from Life in Slow Motion was
featured in the pilot episode of the television series Conviction.
- "Slow Motion" from Life in Slow Motion
was featured at length on the season premiere of the long-running U.S.
television series E.R., airing
on September 21, 2006. It was also featured at the end of the finale of
Conviction.
- "Please Forgive Me" from White Ladder
is featured in the pilot episode "My First Day" of the TV comedy Scrubs
along with the movies All Over the Guy
and On the Edge.
- "Sail Away" from White Ladder is
featured in the film 15 Minutes
starring Robert De Niro.
- Hold On To Nothing from Sell
Sell Sell is featured in episode 16 of the TV show Jericho.
- "Freedom" from A New Day at Midnight is
featured in a fourth-season episode of the TV show Alias.
- "This Year's Love" from White Ladder is
featured in a season-four episode of the television show Dawson's
Creek and in the movies Wimbledon
and The Girl Next Door.
A piano-solo version of the song is also featured in the latter movie.
It also appears in Crazy/Beautiful
but it is not on the movie's soundtrack.
- "January Rain" from Lost Songs is
featured in the movie Serendipity.
- Gray's Soft Cell cover, "Say Hello Wave Goodbye", is
played at the end of the Without
A Trace episode "Claire de Lune"
- "The Other Side" is played at the end of Season 1, Episode
1 of Day
Break and also at the end of Smallville,
Episode 18 of Season 2.
- "Babylon" from White Ladder is played
at a sequence near the end of Season 2, Episode 27 of Boston
Legal.
- "As I'm Leaving" from Lost Songs is
featured in the motion picture Ladder 49.
Band
- David
Gray - vocals,
piano, guitar
- Keith Pryor - drums, percussion, vocals
- Rob Malone - bass, vocals
- Neill MacColl - guitar, Lap steel, keyboards, vocals
Former members
- Craig "Clune" McClune - drums, percussion, vocals
- Tim Bradshaw - Lap steel, keyboards, vocals
- David Nolte - guitar, keyboards, vocals,
other various instruments
Discography
Studio albums
- 1. A Century Ends
(1993)
- 2. Flesh
(1994)
- 3. Sell,
Sell, Sell
(1996)
- 4. White Ladder
(1999)
- 5. Lost
Songs 95-98
(2001)
- 6. A
New Day at Midnight
(2002)
- 7. Life
in Slow Motion
(2005)
Compilations
- 1. The
EPs 1992-1994
(2001)
- 2. Shine: The Best
of the Early Years
(2007)
- 3. A Thousand Miles Behind
(2007)
Virtual albums
- iTunes Originals -
David Gray * [1]
Singles
|
Year
|
Title
|
Chart positions
|
Album
|
|
US Hot
100
|
UK Singles Chart
|
| 1992 |
"Birds Without Wings" |
- |
- |
A Century Ends |
| 1993 |
"Shine" |
- |
- |
| "Wisdom" |
- |
- |
| 1996 |
"Faster Sooner Now" |
- |
- |
Sell, Sell, Sell |
| "Late Night Radio" |
- |
- |
| 1999 |
"Please Forgive
Me" |
- |
72 |
White Ladder |
| 2000 |
"Babylon" |
57 |
- |
| 2001 |
"This Year's Love" |
- |
- |
| "Babylon" (single remix edit) |
- |
5 |
| "Please Forgive
Me" (reissue) (single remix) |
- |
18 |
| "This Year's Love" (reissue)
(strings remix) |
- |
18 |
| "Sail Away" (Biffico
radio edit) |
- |
26 |
| "Say Hello Wave Goodbye"
(radio edit) |
- |
26 |
| 2002 |
"The Other Side"
(radio edit) |
- |
35 |
A New Day at Midnight |
| 2003 |
"Be Mine" |
- |
23 |
| 2005 |
"The One I Love" |
- |
8 |
Life in Slow Motion |
| "Hospital Food" |
- |
34 |
| 2006 |
"Alibi" |
- |
71 |
See also
- Live from London
(iTunes)
- This Year's Love
External links
| v • d • e David
Gray |
| David
Gray |
| Other musicians: Tim Bradshaw ·
Rob Malone ·
Craig McClune ·
Neil MacColl ·
David Nolte ·
Keith Pryor |
| Discography |
| Studio albums: A
Century Ends ·
Flesh ·
Sell, Sell, Sell ·
White Ladder ·
Lost Songs 95-98 ·
A New Day at Midnight ·
Life in Slow Motion |
| Singles: Birds
Without Wings ·
Shine ·
Wisdom ·
Faster Sooner Now ·
Late Night Radio ·
Please Forgive
Me ·
Babylon ·
This Year's Love ·
Sail Away ·
Say Hello Wave
Goodbye ·
The Other
Side ·
Be Mine ·
The One I
Love ·
Hospital
Food ·
Alibi |
| Compilations: The
EPs 1992-1994 ·
Shine: The Best
of the Early Years ·
A Thousand Miles Behind |
| Videos: David
Gray: Live ·
Live in Slow Motion |
