ArtistInfo

Keith Christmas

voc, g, *1946 GB
Singer / Musician / Songwriter of Rock and World

In 1969 Keith Christmas recorded his first album 'Stimulus' at Sound Control in Chelsea, London when he was signed up by Sandy Roberton.  Mighty Baby were given the task of backing the tracks and partly because of this it has become a collector's item
 That same year because of the gigs he played as the main act at the Beckenham Arts Lab, then run by a rising star called David Bowie, he was asked to play the acoustic guitar on David's first album 'Space Oddity'. He played his Fender Palomino Acoustic guitar while David played his 12-string on Letter to Hermione, God Knows I’m Good and Occasional Dream
 That year he was asked by Michael Eavis to appear at a small festival in Pilton called the Glastonbury Festival. He made many appearances in the years that followed, some as a booked artist and some simply turning up and playing. 

In 1970 he recorded the album 'Fable of the Wings' and in 1971 he wrote and recorded the highly-acclaimed' Pigmy'. That summer he graduated from the University of Bath. He finished lectures on Tuesday and by Friday was trying to convince a doorman at the Leicester DeMontford Hall to let him in as he was the support act that night for The Who. Two highly-charged gigs later and he was on a UK tour firstly with King Crimson then straight after, Ten Years After. Throughout the 70’s as well as playing club and University goes all over the UK and Europe, he was also the opening act for Argent, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, The Kinks and was on Roxy Music’s first UK tour. In 1974 after splitting with Sandy Roberton, he was signed by ELP’s house label Manticore and with firstly Greg Lake, then Peter Sinfield producing, recorded the album Brighter Day. Keith formed a band at this point as the music he was creating was heading further and further away from the folk genre but after some very successful gigs at the Roundhouse in Camden Town and the Marquee, together with his manager Jackie Krost of BKM, they decided to head to LA and write the next album there. Keith settled into the famous Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard and in the 20 months that followed recorded Stories From the Human Zoo. In 1976 he came back to England and after a few years stopped playing. He formed the blues band 'Weatherman' in 1991 with some friends and an album of the same name was released in 1992. In 1996 he suddenly started to write a different kind of acoustic material which almost immediately led to the release of a new album 'Love Beyond Deals' on HTD records. In January 2003 Keith released an instrumental CD, ‘Acoustica’. It got excellent worldwide reviews - ‘absolutely brilliant’, ‘this is a quite exceptional piece of work’, ‘lavish and overwhelming’, ‘a beautiful album’, and the opening track was used on the BBC documentary 'Hidden Gardens'. In 2006 he recorded and produced his first ever solo CD called 'Light of the Dawn'. The magazine fRoots reviewed it “…the sound is fantastic and grabs the attention: the confident, gutsy guitar, picked or slide, has immediacy and intimacy in equal measure; and Christmas's urgent, hoarse vocals can't help but involve the listener in the moods and stories of the songs…a fine timeless album”. In 2011 Keith released a 5-track solo acoustic EP called 'Fat Cat Big Fish' and in 2012 released his first live CD 'Live at the Pump’. In June 2015, Keith went to France and started writing again. Two weeks later and seven songs started, he came back to England and finished the album in less than 10 months. Since then, early versions of 8 songs that were posted on YouTube, SoundCloud and Fandalism have been played a staggering 47,000 times, 14,000 of them an appeal for tolerance to refugees, ‘Cross the Water’. All this without any publicity machine, minimal live gigs and no airplay. ‘Crazy Dancing Days’ was released in December 2016.

Instruments

• Vocals
• Guitar
• Acoustic guitar
• Strings
• Electric guitar

Genres

• Rock
• World
• Folk
• R&B/Soul

Plays With