Gavin Adam Wood – SOULS APART

Gavin Adam Wood is an up and coming singer-songwriter who was born in Leek on the edge of the Peak District, bought his first guitar at the age of 15, playing along to his musical hero David Gilmour. He formed his first band, the Pynewood Shoes, as a teenager and enjoyed local success until leaving for University in 1989.

The guitar remained a private pleasure for the majority of Gavin’s life at university in Wolverhampton where he would play for friends, the occasional Student Union event but mostly at a local folk club in an unusual pub called the “Little Dry Dock” in Netherton, which had a bar made from a canal barge. Lyrically, folk music held a fascination: the stories of past times and tales of missed loved ones, and lyrics drenched in all kinds of, what would otherwise be to most, private emotion.

In the early nineties, Gavin began to write his own songs and played in an acoustic band called Harmonic Brew, changing to Thrice Nay and, finally, Empty House before dissolving.

2009 saw a major turning point. After too many years of occasional gigging with more years off than on, Gavin took to the streets of Cambridge to busk in Cambridge’s 2nd annual Buskers and Street Performers’ festival. Over 50 or more local and national acts took part and Gavin was voted best performer in his debut competition!

This led to numerous appearances on local radio shows and also invitations to perform at larger open-air events. Gavin was asked to perform his debut single Light up the Streets (written to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust, released on his Banania Records label) as the Cambridge Christmas lights were turned on in Market Square in 2009. Gavin also performed at Cambridge Party in the Park,  and he opened Cambridge ‘Race for Life’, performing on the big stage in front of around 20,000 runners, walkers and supporters. The highlight for 2009 was undoubtedly performing some of his songs at the Cambridge Folk Festival.

Gavin took a three month break to work with the UN, coordinating aid agency information, following the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Gavin returned home in the summer of 2010 to start recording SOULS APART, with two new songs written in Haiti: Trust in the Universe and Gentle Moon, one of Gavin’s favourites, written for his sweetheart 4000 miles away in England. SOULS APART carries a theme of hopeless love; soul mates who can’t be together, longing for one another, dreaming of a time when they can be united, maybe not until another lifetime. Many of the songs reflect heartache, waiting, longing; a declaration of love into the universe in a hope for answers.

Before the summer of 2010 was over there was another humanitarian disaster, this time in Pakistan after unprecedented monsoon floods destroyed millions of homes and forced 30 million people to seek refuge in makeshift camps. Gavin spent the rest of 2010 in Pakistan with the UN.

Gavin finally finished recording the album in the summer of 2011. While the album was being printed Gavin set about performing gigs and busking again in the 4thCambridge Buskers’ Festival. To his delight he was voted best act yet again. During the making of the album, one of the songs was chosen by an Italian artistic movement, Immagine&Poesia, which is about poetry inspiring artwork and vice-versa. The movement requested the second track from the album, Until the Stars Fall to be their official song. A short video of the movement’s artwork is on YouTube accompanied by the song and is dedicated to the late Aeronwy Thomas, daughter of the poet Dylan Thomas. Before she sadly passed away, Aeronwy requested to have one of her own poems printed in the CD booklet.

“…a touch of magic. He was fabulous!” Heart FM

For more information and the latest tour news, please visit:- www.gavinadamwood.com

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