Biography - Chris Gavin

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Born in the East dreaming of the West.

Chris Gavin grew up between Dublin City and Mayo, in the west of Ireland. As a child the constant movement between the two lit his imagination, and got him writing songs, but just the words. The music was stuck inside his head.

Until he met the singing master of his soul

At the age of twenty-four Chris was apprenticed as an actor to a theatre company in Dublin City. Three days into the job he went to see Kevin Crawford, the company's voice trainer. He explained to Kevin that as he couldn't sing in the first place he didn't see what voice training could do for him.

At this point Kevin took Chris into a room and played him a scale on a piano, Chris was to sing along. He could not. Then Kevin carried out a little mind over matter trick involving a handful of imaginary stars, which Chris was to place in the air as he ascended the scale and then take back down as he descended. Chris did this and could not believe the sound of the perfectly pitched notes which floated out of him. He describes walking into that room as one person and walking out transformed into another.

The discovery changed everything. Now that he could sing Chris could get at all the tunes which had been banging around in his head for years. He could finally put these tunes to the lyrics he had been writing. For the next four years he locked himself away and honed and crafted his songwriting. He describes this period as the time when he attended the 'University of Song'.

Someone should call round and see if he will come out

It is possible that Chris might have stayed locked away if it hadn't been for Colm Brosnan, who in 1999 dragged Chris kicking and screaming into sing with him at The Central Hotel in Dublin City. Colm, a singer and guitarist, had heard about Chris from a mutual friend and had resolved to get the reclusive songwriter to come out and sing.

The Central Hotel was huge a breakthrough for Chris and pretty soon Colm was organising gigs for him all round the city. Then in 2002 when it was time to begin recording the album that would be All winter we have waited it was Colm who organised the studio and most of the musicians.

Recording the album

By this time Chris was working as an English teacher and so he had to wait for midterm breaks to go into the studio. During one of these breaks there was a school trip to Paris. As a teacher Chris was offered a chance to go but had to turn it down on account of the recording. He recalls standing at the window of his second year English class watching the bus as it drove out of the school yard, with parents waving, dogs chasing, and the sun beating brilliantly down.

The next day he went in to begin recording his album, starting with the song School Trip.