Guy Garvey | |
|---|---|
 Garvey at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2015 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Guy Edward John Patrick Garvey |
| Born | 6 March 1974 Bury, Lancashire, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) |
|
| Instrument(s) |
|
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Website | elbow |
Guy Edward John Garvey (born 6 March 1974) [1] is an English musician, singer, songwriter and radio presenter. He is the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Elbow. He has a weekly show on BBC Radio 6 Music titled Guy Garvey's Finest Hour.
Garvey grew up in Bury, Greater Manchester and comes from a working class, Catholic family and he is one of seven siblings. He told The Guardian in 2015, that he was named Guy, after another Catholic, Guy Fawkes. He also told them he was bullied at school, due to his ears, which he had pinned back at the age of 12, his sister Gina, told the Guardian that the school bullying may have contributed to her brother's sensitivity. His parents separated when he was aged 12, and they had divorced by the time he was 13. His father was a former grammar school boy who could not afford to go to University; a Trade Unionist, he spent most of his working life as a news paper proofreader and as a chemist at ICI. His mother was a police officer who went back to university and became a psychologist. Garvey has five older sisters: Gina, Louise, Sam, Karen, and Becky. His younger brother is the actor Marcus Garvey. [2] [3]
In the early 1990s, while at sixth-form college in Whitefield, [4] near Bury, Garvey formed Elbow with Mark and Craig Potter, Pete Turner, and Richard Jupp. He serves as the lyricist of Elbow, and has been widely praised for his songwriting throughout his career. As well as vocal duties Garvey has also played a wide variety of instruments live including both electric and acoustic guitar, trumpet, and various forms of percussion. Elbow won two Ivor Novello awards for best song writing for the 2008 single "Grounds for Divorce" as well as best contemporary song for "One Day Like This". [5] He was awarded a lifetime achievement honour by the Radio Academy in 2014. [6] In the same year, he also featured on the re-launched Band Aid charity's single to raise funds for the 2014 Ebola crisis in Western Africa. [6] Garvey, with Elbow, was commissioned by the BBC to write the theme song for the 2012 London Olympics and Elbow performed this song, "First Steps" at the closing ceremony of the Olympics. [7]
Amongst other work, Garvey produced and recorded the I Am Kloot album Natural History (2001). Alongside Elbow keyboard player Craig Potter he also produced I Am Kloot's single "Maybe I Should" (2005, not associated with any album), their Mercury Music Prize nominated 2010 album Sky at Night and their 2013 album Let It All In . Elbow were themselves Mercury Music Prize nominees, in 2011, for the album Build a Rocket Boys! and won the prize in 2008 for their album "The Seldom Seen Kid". In addition, Garvey made an appearance on Massive Attack's 2010 album record Heligoland .
He is a member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA). [8] In April 2012 Garvey became a patron of the Manchester Craft and Design Centre. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to music he received, in July of the same year, an honorary doctorate from Manchester Metropolitan University, a Doctor of Arts. [9]
Garvey has been a presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music since 2007 (Sunday afternoon 2 pm to 4 pm, British time) and previously presented a show on Sunday evenings on XFM. He had a monthly column in the now-defunct listings magazine City Life and is a patron of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), [10] the Manchester-based charity responsible for clearing war zones of mines and munitions worldwide.
In 2014, he was a guest of Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs and he chose Bushmills Irish whiskey and ice as his luxury item. His book choice was, The Collected Works of J.D. Salinger. His selected best disc was, Talk Talk's New Grass, Laughing Stock. [11]
In 2015, Garvey presented Music Box, an iPlayer-exclusive series covering emerging and established bands. Garvey has also read several children's stories for the CBeebies "Bedtime Stories" program on the BBC.[ citation needed ]
In 2015, Garvey announced that he would be releasing his first solo studio album while continuing his duties as Elbow's lead songwriter. The resulting album, Courting the Squall , was released on 30 October 2015, by Polydor Records in the UK. [12] [13] On 27 October 2015 Garvey appeared on BBC Two's Later... with Jools Holland , where he performed "Angela's Eyes" and "Belly of the Whale". [14]
In April 2017, Garvey appeared in the BBC television sitcom Peter Kay's Car Share , playing Kayleigh's brother-in-law Steve. [15]
In September 2018, Garvey appeared in the ITV television series The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco , as the bar singer in the Episode "Fog of War". He sings "I Only Have Eyes for You".
In 2020, the singer collaborated with Wise Owl Films (part of Lime Pictures) on the Sky Arts music series, Guy Garvey: From The Vaults, which features performances and interviews from a specific year in pop and rock history. [16] Archive footage includes Channel 4's The Tube (made by Tyne Tees), Tiswas , Razzmatazz and Get It Together , as well as clips from regional programmes such as So It Goes , The London Weekend Show and The Geordie Scene . Many of the performances were previously unseen or being shown for the first time since they originally aired. [17] The series began on 18 September 2020 and will be returning to Sky Arts for a fifth series in 2024. [18]
In January 2024, Elbow performed on the The Graham Norton Show and afterwards Garvey joined Norton's guests to promote Elbow's tenth studio album, Audio Vertigo which will be released on the 22 March, their tour starts on the 7 May 2024. [19] [20]
Garvey began dating DJ Edith Bowman in 2004, later he had a long term relationship with writer Emma Jane Unsworth. He started dating actress Rachael Stirling the daughter of Dame Diana Rigg in 2015 [2] [21] and the couple were married in June 2016 at Manchester Town Hall. [22] The couple had their first child, a son, in 2017. [23]
In a 2019 interview, Garvey identified Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock albums as his two favourite albums of all time, and also cited Bjork's Vespertine , Joni Mitchell's For the Roses , and the work of I Am Kloot and Peter Gabriel as other favourites, among many others. [24]
William Francis Nighy is an English actor. Known for his work in several stage, television and film productions, he has received several awards including a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award, and also has had nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award.
Elbow are an English rock band formed in Bury, Greater Manchester in 1997. The band consists of Guy Garvey, Craig Potter, Mark Potter and Pete Turner. They have played together since 1990, adopting the name Elbow in 1997. Drummer Alex Reeves replaced Richard Jupp in 2016.
Rachael Atlanta Stirling is an English stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Laurence Olivier Award for her stage work. She played Nancy Astley in the BBC drama Tipping the Velvet, and Millie in the ITV series The Bletchley Circle. She has also guest starred in Lewis and one episode of Doctor Who, co-starring with her mother Diana Rigg.
I Am Kloot were an English rock band, formed in Manchester in 1999. The band was composed of vocalist/guitarist John Bramwell, bassist Peter Jobson and drummer Andy Hargreaves.
XFM Manchester was an Independent Local Radio station broadcasting alternative and indie music to Manchester in North West England.
Andrew "Andy Votel" Shallcross is an English musician, DJ, record producer, graphic designer and co-founder of Twisted Nerve Records and the reissue label Finders Keepers Records.
Natural History is the debut album by English rock band I Am Kloot, released to much eagerness from the British music press in 2001. The album was produced by Guy Garvey, lead singer for the Manchester-based band Elbow.
Sky at Night is the fifth studio album by English rock band I Am Kloot. The album was produced by Guy Garvey and Craig Potter of the band Elbow and was released on 5 July 2010. Since 2 July 2010, the whole album has been streamed for free on the guardian.co.uk website.
Liam Frost is a musician from Manchester, England. He recorded and played with his backing group 'The Slowdown Family' on his debut album Show Me How The Spectres Dance but now performs solo under the name Liam Frost.
John Harold Arnold Bramwell is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the frontman for the former three-piece alternative rock band I Am Kloot.
Peter James Turner is a British musician and songwriter who has been the bassist for the rock band Elbow since the group's formation.
Benjamin John Christophers is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. To date he has released five albums: the first two on Virgin Records' V2 label, the third on Cooking Vinyl and the two most recent on his own label, Rocketeer.
The Seldom Seen Kid is the fourth studio album by English rock band Elbow. It was released by Fiction Records on 17 March 2008 in the United Kingdom and was released by Geffen Records on 22 April 2008 in the United States. The album debuted at number five on the UK Albums Chart and won the Mercury Prize in 2008.
Build a Rocket Boys! is the fifth studio album by English rock band Elbow, released on 4 March 2011 in the UK. Coinciding with the UK release, the album was available digitally in the United States on 8 March and released in the physical format on 12 April. It is the follow-up to the highly successful The Seldom Seen Kid, and like its predecessor, was self-produced by the band in Blueprint Studios, Manchester. The album was nominated for the 2011 Mercury Prize. It was supported by the Build a Rocket Boys! Tour.
Let It All In is the sixth and final studio album by English rock band I Am Kloot. Like the previous one, this record was produced by Guy Garvey and Craig Potter of the band Elbow. It was released on 21 January 2013. On 27 January, the album debuted at #10 in the UK Albums Chart and at #1 in the Official Record Store Chart.
The Take Off and Landing of Everything is the sixth studio album by English rock band Elbow, released in the UK, Europe, and Australia through Fiction Records and Polydor Records on 10 March 2014 and in the US on Concord Records on 11 March 2014.
Darren McGarvey FRSL, who goes by the stage name Loki, is a Scottish rapper and social commentator. He was an activist during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. He is from a political and performance family: his aunt is the former Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) Rosie McGarvey Kane.
Courting the Squall is the debut solo album by the English musician Guy Garvey, who is best known as the lead singer of Elbow. It was released on 30 October 2015 in the UK through Polydor.
Giants of All Sizes is the eighth studio album by British alternative rock band Elbow, released on Polydor Records on 11 October 2019. The album has a darker lyrical tone than previous Elbow albums, with singer Guy Garvey's lyrics relating to Brexit, the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy and the deaths of his father and two close friends. It was widely praised by critics, and entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, becoming the band's third consecutive chart-topping studio album.
Flying Dream 1 is the ninth studio album by British alternative rock band Elbow. It was released on 19 November 2021, through Polydor Records.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
