Rare solo UK performance from New York’s world class guitar hero
+ support from Gemma Ray
* The thinking man’s guitar hero… An A-list musician – The New Yorker*
*One of the best and most original guitarists in America – Rolling Stone*
*Without a doubt, the most innovative and challenging guitarist playing today – fRoots*
*Guitarist of 1000 ideas – The New York Times *
*The legendary leftfield guitarist – The Guardian*
*Possibly the world’s most popular avant-rock guitarist – The Independent*
Gary Lucas brings his innovative and challenging guitar playing to London’s prestigious Jazz Café on Saturday 3rd October 2009.
A Grammy nominated songwriter and an international recording artist with twenty acclaimed solo albums to date, Lucas has worked with Leonard Bernstein, Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley, Chris Cornell, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop & Dr. John to name but a few.
Gary’s latest album, a collaboration with Najma Akhtar, is entitled ‘Rishte’, and was released in the UK on 15th June 2009 on Harmonia Mundi/World Village. Najma knew and respected Gary’s work with Jeff Buckley and Gary had loved Najma’s ethereal vocal collaboration with Page & Plant. A couple of gigs later Gary produced the music, including some songs originally written for Buckley, and Najma nailed the words and the melodies for their first album. Their coming together is a rare confluence of interests and talents and it has produced a beautiful & unique collection of songs.
Gary Lucas tours the world relentlessly both solo and with several different ensembles, including his longtime band ‘Gods And Monsters’, whose ranks once included the late singer, Jeff Buckley. Gary co-wrote two of Jeff Buckley’s most famous hits, “Grace” and “Mojo Pin”, when Jeff was in his group; songs which later became the title track and the first song on Buckley’s double platinum Sony album “Grace” – which Mojo recently names the number 1 Modern Classic Rock Album.
The early Gary & Jeff collaborations can also be heard on the recent Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas album “Songs To No One” which charted internationally and has world-wide sales approaching 100,000. Other notable recent releases from Gary include “The Edge Of Heaven – Gary Lucas Plays Mid-Century Chinese Pop”, an album of Gary’s lush arrangements of classic Chinese pop tunes from the 1930s, which received international raves everywhere from Rolling Stone to the Wall Street Journal to the Hong Kong Music Weekly. There’s also a compilation of the best bits from his early band and solo work entitled “Operators Are Standing By”. A 4-star Mojo review raved “This album confirms Gary Lucas as THE psychedelic guitarist for the post-modern set.”
