- Reeves Gabrels
Reeves Gabrels (born
June 4 ,1956 ) is an Americanguitarist , best known for his long partnership with British singerDavid Bowie , working together regularly from 1987 to 2000.Early life
Reeves Gabrels was born in Staten Island, New York in June 1956. His mother was a typist and his father worked on tugboats in New York Harbor. Gabrels started playing guitar at age 13, and the following year (1971) his father arranged for lessons with the father's friend and contemporary Turk Van Lake, who lived in the neighborhood. Van Lake (1918-2002) was a professional musician who had played with Benny Goodman and others [See Obituary, New York Times, October 5, 2002 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02EED8173BF936A35753C1A9649C8B63] ] .
After high school, Gabrels attended the
Parsons School of Design and theSchool of Visual Arts in New York City but continued to play guitar. Through somesession musician work he met noted jazz guitaristJohn Scofield , [ [http://www.johnscofield.com/ John Scofield - Jazz Guitarist | Composer ] ] from whom he took a lesson or two. Gabrels moved toBoston to attend theBerklee School of Music , which he left several credits short of a degree in 1981.Career
Gabrels had an active performing career in Boston before and after his professional association with David Bowie began in the late 1980s. During the 1980s and early 1990s Gabrels was a member of such Boston bands as The Dark, Life on Earth,
Rubber Rodeo ,The Bentmen andModern Farmer . Modern Farmer (Gabrels, Jamie Rubin, Dave Hull, and Billy Beard) issued a self-titled record on Victory/Universal in 1993.Gabrels was introduced to
David Bowie during a Bowie tour in 1987 for which Gabrels' journalist wife, Sara Terry, worked as publicist. Gabrels later (1989-1993) joined forces with Bowie and the Sales brothers (drummer Hunt Sales and bass player Tony Sales) in the rock bandTin Machine . Later, Gabrels became an essential part of Bowie's nineties sound, most notably on "Outside" (1995), "Earthling" (1997), and "'hours...' " (1999), the latter two of which he co-produced. Gabrels and Bowie also created the soundtrack to the computer game "" in 1999 for the game's French publisher. Gabrels ended his professional association with Bowie in late 1999.Independent of his work with Bowie, Gabrels maintained a wide-ranging career as composer/songwriter, musical collaborator, and solo performer/producer. He worked with Robert Smith of
The Cure during the 1990s, collaborating on The Cure's track "Wrong Number " and "A Sign From God" (asCOGASM ) as well as co-writing the song "Yesterday's Gone" which Smith sings on Gabrels' 1995 solo album "Ulysses".Gabrels has written soundtracks for films including David Sutherland's "The Farmer's Wife" (Frontline, 1995) and for PBS productions, and collaborated with Public Enemy on the song "Go Cat Go" for the Spike Lee film "He Got Game" (soundtrack, Def Jam, 1998). He wrote the "club music" portions of the soundtrack for the video game "
Deus Ex "cite web | title = Game Credits for Deus Ex | url = http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/deus-ex/credits | accessdate = 2008-03-09] . Gabrels and slide guitarist David Tronzo joined forces on a virtuoso instrumental album, "Night in Amnesia," issued by Rounder in 1995.Solo records by Gabrels include "The Sacred Squall of Now" (Rounder/Upstart, 1995); "Ulysses" (Emagine, 2000); "Live, Late, Loud" (Myth Music, 2003); and "Rockonica" (Myth Music/Favored Nations/Sony, 2005).Gabrels joined
Heavy metal supergroupX-World/5 with drummerBig Swede , bass playerMagnus Rosén , vocalistNils K. Rue , and guitaristAndy LaRocque . Their album "New Universal Order" was released by German label AFM in June 2008.Since 2006 Gabrels has been based in Nashville, Tennessee where he often performs in a trio with drummer Jeff Brown and bass player Kevin Hornback ("Reeves Gabrels and His Imaginary Friends").
External links
* [http://www.reevesgabrels.net/ reevesgabrels.net] The Official Website.
* [http://www.myspace.com/reevesgabrels Official My Space page] .
* [http://www.reevz.net/ Reevz.net] A fan site.References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
