Gordon Giltrap
Encyclopedia
Gordon Giltrap is an English
acoustic
and electric
guitarist
and composer
, whose musical styles cross multiple genres, including folk
, blues
, folk rock
, pop
, classical and rock
.
Giltrap started to learn the guitar
at the age of twelve. Never receiving any formal tuition on the instrument, he gradually developed his own style and technique.
His musical career started to take off in the 1960s, when he played the folk scene in London
alongside contemporaries such as Bert Jansch
, John Renbourn
and Mike Oldfield
. Giltrap cites Jansch as a great influence.
At the age of eighteen Giltrap signed to Transatlantic Records
and between 1968-1971 released a folk album (guitar + vocals) every year. While popular on the folk and university circuit, Giltrap reached a turning point and received much greater recognition during the 1970s. During this time Giltrap started to concentrate on more purely instrumental pieces, and in 1976 released the album Visionary, based on the art and poetry of William Blake
.
The success of this album prompted Giltrap to move on from the singer-songwriter
approach and form the Gordon Giltrap Band, which toured extensively in the UK
at that time. A follow-up album, Perilous Journey, consolidated his success, being named at one of the best albums of 1977 by The Sunday Times
. It peaked in the UK Albums Chart
at #29. A single
taken from the album, "Heartsong" received extensive airplay and reached #21 in the UK Singles Chart
. The track was later used as the signature tune of the BBC TV series Holiday
. Giltrap's next album Fear of the Dark was released in 1978.
By the end of the 1970s he was commissioned to write a number of notable pieces, such as the classically inspired The Brotherhood, based on the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, and The Eye of the Wind Rhapsody, an orchestral work celebrating the exploration of the New World by British sailing ships. In the 1990s, Gordon played a key role in Cliff Richard
's Heathcliff
musical
, playing the musical narrator
. He also composed a number of pieces for the show.
In late 2009, Giltrap started "Three Parts Guitar", a four date world tour with classical guitarist Raymond Burley, and jazz guitarist John Etheridge
.
For two years Giltrap wrote a regular acoustic column for Total Guitar magazine. An anthology of 26 articles is published in Total Giltrap, a book with an accompanying CD upon which Gordon plays the studies and pieces.
Giltrap is a regular columnist for the Acoustic magazine.
Re-issues and numerous compilations have been omitted from this list.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
acoustic
Classical guitar
The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...
and electric
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, whose musical styles cross multiple genres, including folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, classical and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
.
Giltrap started to learn the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
at the age of twelve. Never receiving any formal tuition on the instrument, he gradually developed his own style and technique.
His musical career started to take off in the 1960s, when he played the folk scene in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
alongside contemporaries such as Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
, John Renbourn
John Renbourn
John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...
and Mike Oldfield
Mike Oldfield
Michael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...
. Giltrap cites Jansch as a great influence.
At the age of eighteen Giltrap signed to Transatlantic Records
Transatlantic Records
Transatlantic Records was a British independent record label. It was established in 1961. It started began primarily as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records - by many of the artists who influenced the burgeoning British folk and blues boom. Within a couple of years, the company had...
and between 1968-1971 released a folk album (guitar + vocals) every year. While popular on the folk and university circuit, Giltrap reached a turning point and received much greater recognition during the 1970s. During this time Giltrap started to concentrate on more purely instrumental pieces, and in 1976 released the album Visionary, based on the art and poetry of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
.
The success of this album prompted Giltrap to move on from the singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
approach and form the Gordon Giltrap Band, which toured extensively in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
at that time. A follow-up album, Perilous Journey, consolidated his success, being named at one of the best albums of 1977 by The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
. It peaked in the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
at #29. A single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
taken from the album, "Heartsong" received extensive airplay and reached #21 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. The track was later used as the signature tune of the BBC TV series Holiday
Holiday (TV series)
Holiday was a long-running UK television programme on BBC One, and was the oldest travel review show on UK television. It was aired on the channel from 1969 until 2007.-Overview:...
. Giltrap's next album Fear of the Dark was released in 1978.
By the end of the 1970s he was commissioned to write a number of notable pieces, such as the classically inspired The Brotherhood, based on the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, and The Eye of the Wind Rhapsody, an orchestral work celebrating the exploration of the New World by British sailing ships. In the 1990s, Gordon played a key role in Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
's Heathcliff
Heathcliff (musical)
Heathcliff was the brainchild of singer Cliff Richard based loosely on the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, though focussing on the character of Heathcliff and adapting the story to fit in with the staging and production...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, playing the musical narrator
Narrator
A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...
. He also composed a number of pieces for the show.
In late 2009, Giltrap started "Three Parts Guitar", a four date world tour with classical guitarist Raymond Burley, and jazz guitarist John Etheridge
John Etheridge
John Michael Glyn Etheridge is a British jazz/fusion guitarist associated with the Canterbury Scene....
.
For two years Giltrap wrote a regular acoustic column for Total Guitar magazine. An anthology of 26 articles is published in Total Giltrap, a book with an accompanying CD upon which Gordon plays the studies and pieces.
Giltrap is a regular columnist for the Acoustic magazine.
Discography
- Gordon Giltrap (1968)
- Portrait (1969)
- Accolade (1970)
- A Testament of Time (1971)
- Giltrap (1973)
- VisionaryVisionary (Gordon Giltrap Album)Visionary is a 1976 studio album by guitarist Gordon Giltrap.The music is inspired by the words of poet William Blake.-Side one:#"Awakening"#"Robes And Crowns"#"From The Four Winds"#"Lucifer's Cage"#"Revelation"-Side two:...
(1976) - Perilous JourneyPerilous Journey (album)Perilous Journey is a 1977 studio album by guitarist Gordon Giltrap.The album was remixed and re-released in 1998.-Personnel:*Gordon Giltrap - Guitars*Rod Edwards - Keyboards*John G Perry - Bass*Simon Phillips - Drums-External links:*""...
(1977) - Fear Of The DarkFear Of The Dark (Gordon Giltrap album)Fear Of The Dark is a 1978 studio album by guitarist Gordon Giltrap. It is the last of the album trilogy that started with 1976's Visionary and continued with 1977's Perilous Journey.The album was remixed and re-released in 1998.-Personnel:...
(1978) - The Early Days (1978) (compilation)
- Performance (1980)
- The Peacock Party (1979)
- The Platinum Collection (1981) (compilation)
- Gordon Giltrap Live (1981)
- Airwaves (1982)
- Elegy (1987)
- A Midnight Clear (1987) (collection of Christmas carols)
- One to One (1989)
- Guitarist (1990) (compilation)
- The Eye of the Wind (1991)
- A Matter of Time (1991) (with Martin TaylorMartin TaylorMartin Taylor, MBE is a British jazz guitarist who has performed in groups, guitar ensembles and as an accompanist to many of the world’s most famous musicians...
) - The Solo Album (1992)
- On a Summer's Night (1992) (live)
- The Brotherhood Suite (1995)
- Live At The BBC ( 1995 )
- Troubadour (1998)
- Part of the Picture (2000) (compilation)
- Janschology (2000)
- Under This Blue Sky (2002)
- Drifter (2004)
- Secret Valentine (2007)
- As It Happens...As It Happens...As It Happens... is a 2009 live album by guitarist Gordon Giltrap.Recorded Live at Dorchester Arts Centre on 27 January 2007, As It Happens... is the first fully complete live album by Gordon Giltrap featuring all the music and talking uncut....
(2009) - From Brush and StoneFrom Brush and StoneFrom Brush & Stone is a studio album by guitarist Gordon Giltrap and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. The album is the first opportunity to record together for Gordon Giltrap and Rick Wakeman...
(2009) (with Rick WakemanRick WakemanRichard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
) - Double Visions (2009) (with Raymond Burley)
- Shining Morn (2010)
Re-issues and numerous compilations have been omitted from this list.