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David Gray's fourth album, White Ladder, was self financed, recorded in a London flat with the windows open and the trucks rumbling past. It owes as much to the sampler as to the guitar, but retains David's distinctive touches, the wistful vocals and sublime melodies. In early 1999 Gray released White Ladder in Ireland on his own label, IHT, and it went straight into the top 30. Meanwhile five tracks from the album provided the backbone for the soundtrack of Kathy Burke's film, This Years Love. David spent much of 1999 touring Europe, culminating with a sold out at Dublin's 8,500 capacity Point Depot. White Ladder, having already been certified 5x platinum, reached #1 on the Irish album charts on January 14th, 2000. |
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On March 21, 2000, ATO Records released White Ladder in the U.S. The enhanced CD includes the nine original album tracks with two bonus tracks - "Night Blindness" and "Babylon II" - as well as a twelve-minute documentary with photos, interviews and performance footage. Gray has been special to ATO-founder Dave Matthews since 1993, when he happened upon a copy of his first recording, A Century Ends. "David is one of my absolute favorite artists-beautiful in the purest and most honest way. Anything I can do to turn more listeners on to his music, I will," says Matthews. David Gray was born in Manchester in 1970. When he was nine he moved to Wales with his family, where he lived until he went off to college. While David played in a few punk bands when he was a kid, it wasn't until his college years at the University of Liverpool that he began to really focus on songwriting. After school he moved to London in order to get closer to the action and heart of the music scene. Soon after moving to London, David signed with Hut Records in the UK and Caroline in the U.S. His debut - A Century Ends - was released to great acclaim in the first half of 1993 - ten tracks of anger, love and passion. With the album, David succeeded at winning over a core of loyal followers whom have remained fans through the years. David's subsequent albums - Flesh in 1994 and Sell, Sell, Sell in 1996 - were released by EMI to strong critical acclaim, but made little commercial noise. All the while David Gray continued to build a solid and loyal fan base through his consistently compelling live performances; by the time he released White Ladder, Gray was perfectly poised for this breakthrough success he has at last achieved in Europe. |
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