Steve Gibbons

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Steve Gibbons 2009 at the Bardentreffen music festival in Nuremberg

Steve Gibbons (born July 13, 1941 , Harborne, Birmingham , England ) is an English rock guitarist and singer, songwriter and band leader. He has appeared with numerous greats in the industry and is highly praised by critics. Nevertheless, he was denied major successes. In 1982 he was the first western rock musician allowed to perform in the GDR . He also appeared in 1979 at the Nuremberg Open Air on the Zeppelin Field in the opening act for The Who .

Life

The Dominettes, The Uglys, The Idle Race

Steve Gibbons trained as a plumber in Harborne. From 1960 he was a guitarist and singer with The Dominettes, a locally known group that played rhythm and blues standards. In 1963, The Dominettes were renamed The Uglys. In 1965 they released the single Wake Up My Mind on Pye, an original composition by Gibbons and his bandmates Burnet and Holden. Further singles followed in the period from 1965 to 1967, including the song It's Allright, with which the group also appeared in the television program Ready Steady Go! and End Of The Season , the cover version of a song by Ray Davies of the Kinks . None of these singles made it into the UK charts.

The line-up of The Uglys changed frequently. Some members who left the group later played with much better known bands (Dave Pegg at Fairport Convention , Jimmy O'Neil with The Mindbenders and Richard Tandy with Electric Light Orchestra ).

In 1968 Gibbons formed a new group called Balls, which included Trevor Burton (guitar), singer and guitarist Denny Laine (formerly Moody Blues , later Wings ) and former Uglys drummer Keith Smart. In 1971 Gibbons, who had since recorded a first solo album, left the band and joined the band The Idle Race, which soon became the Steve Gibbons Band.

Steve Gibbons Band

In 1975 Peter Meaden, the then manager of The Who took over the management of the Steve Gibbons Band. As a result, the band released a first album for Polydor with Any Road Up that same year and toured the UK, Europe and the US in 1976 as opening act with The Who . They performed on various occasions with Little Feat , Lynyrd Skynyrd , Electric Light Orchestra , The J. Geils Band and Nils Lofgren . The follow-up album Rollin 'On contained the group's best-selling single with the classic rock' n 'roll number Tulane .

After three more albums for Polydor and further line-ups, the band released the album Saints & Sinners on RCA in 1981 . Following this, the band toured the GDR as the first western rock band. Another high point of her career was the 1986 performance at the Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert, in which George Harrison also played.

Today's line-up of the Steve Gibbons Band consists of Steve Gibbons (vocals, guitar, harp), Phil Bond (piano, accordion), Brendan Day (drums), John Caswell (bass) and Howard Gregory (guitar, violin).

The Dylan Project

In addition to his own band, Gibbons also appears from time to time with The Dylan Project, which was founded in the late 1990s. This trio mainly plays cover versions of Bob Dylan .

music

While Gibbons also played psychedelic pop in a style similar to some of the early pieces of Status Quo (e.g. Pictures of Matchstick Men ), he later switched to classic rock 'n' roll , which in particular was in keeping with the zeitgeist of the time the influence of Chuck Berry cannot be denied, and soulful ballads. In the last few years he has increasingly broadened his musical base with his live performances. In addition to elements of blues and rock 'n' roll, his interpretations now also contain elements of country , rockabilly , rhythm 'n' blues , bebop and Tex-Mex . Hierbau often built quotes from rock history into his own songs, from the Beatles to Jimy Hendrix to punk . A special trademark are his introductions and narrative parts performed with British humor during the songs. Gibbons' voice comes very close to Bob Dylan . He was also referred to as "the English Bob Seger ".

Many of his songs tell ( not unlike the Kinks ) stories from the life of the British working class in the years after the Second World War. Frequent topics are motorcycles (Triumph Bonneville, Harley Davidson, Don't trade me in (for a new model)) as well as music and life as a musician (He gave his live for Rock 'n' Roll, British Rock 'n 'Roll, Let there be Bebop).

Stefan Radlmaier, the head of the features section of Nürnberger Nachrichten , characterized the artistic value of gibbons as follows: “The world is unjust. If it were different, a man like Steve Gibbons would have a place of honor in the rock 'n' roll hall of fame and would appear in huge arenas ”.

Steve Gibbons and Germany

Steve Gibbons' career has numerous references to Germany. In the 1960s he often appeared in army clubs in the area of ​​the former British occupation zone (especially in Munster ). In 1979 he had his biggest appearance on the Nuremberg Zeppelin Field in the opening act of The Who in front of more than 40,000 listeners. Two years later he appeared at the Rockpalast of the WDR and toured the GDR as the first western rock musician in 1982 and 1983, long before Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen performed there . (Gibbons later referred to these tours as “Revelation on both sides”.) In 2009 he finally recorded his second live DVD (after the Rockpalast concert) in Germany, namely at a club concert in the Fuerth suitcase factory .

Discography (Steve Gibbons Band only, excerpts)

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Caught In The Act
  UK 22nd 10/22/1977 (3 weeks)
Singles
Johnny Cool
  US 72 06/05/1976 (4 weeks)
Tulane
  UK 12 08/06/1977 (10 weeks)
Eddie Vortex
  UK 56 05/13/1978 (4 weeks)

Studio albums

  • 1971: Short Stories
  • 1976: Any Road Up
  • 1977: Rollin 'On
  • 1978: Down In The Bunker
  • 1981: Street Parade
  • 1981: Saints And Sinners
  • 1988: Maintaining Radio Silence
  • 1993: Birmingham To Memphis
  • 1996: Stained Glass

Live albums

  • 1977: Caught In The Act
  • 1986: On The Loose
  • 1990: Ridin 'Out The Dark
  • 2011: Steve Gibbons-Live at Rockpalast (recorded 1981)

literature

  • Edo Reents: The Spillerige . In: FAZ , July 11, 2011, p. 28
  • The Who: Nuremberg wasn't a concert . In: Musik Joker , No. 19/1979 (September 17-30, 1979), pp. S4 ff.

Web links

Commons : Steve Gibbons  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nürnberger Nachrichten , March 26, 2003
  2. ↑ a b Chart sources: UK US
personal data
SURNAME Gibbons, Steve
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English rock guitarist and singer, songwriter and band leader
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Harborne, Birmingham , England