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Gordon Giltrap, MBE (born 6 April 1948) is an English guitarist and composer. His music crosses several genres. He has been described as "one of the most revered guitarists of his generation", and has drawn praise from fellow musicians including Steve Rothery, Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page. Early life Giltrap was born on 6 April 1948 in the village of Brenchley, Kent, England at The British Hospital for Mothers and Babies. Thereafter he was brought up in Deptford, South East London spending the first 11 years of his life at 43 Elverson Road, a two up, two down terraced house shared by two households with an outside toilet. His family then moved to Blackwall Lane East Greenwich. Rock star Marty Wilde grew up in the same area along with guitarist Albert Lee. Giltrap began to play the guitar at the age of 12 and received no formal tuition, choosing to develop his own style and technique. Career Giltrap's career began in the 1960s performing in the folk music scene in London alongside contemporaries such as Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Mike Oldfield. At 18, Giltrap signed with Transatlantic Records and released his debut studio albums, Gordon Giltrap (1968) and Portrait (1969). Both featured Giltrap on guitar and lead vocals; he has since considered his lyrics "naive". The track "Willow Pattern" from his debut attracted the praise of guitarist Ralph McTell for the imagery it portrayed. "Gospel Song", also from his first, features a more aggressive strumming style, influenced by Pete Townshend, which later became a trademark of his style. In 1969, Giltrap was featured in Transatlantic's guitar showcase album The Contemporary Guitar Sampler, Volume 1. He was also featured on the second volume released in 1970, and both increased his profile. Shortly after the release of his first album, Giltrap joined The Buskers' Tour of the UK, headlined by Don Partridge. Giltrap subsequently formed a band with Partridge called Accolade. Together they released a self-titled album. Partridge later wrote the sleeve notes for Portrait. Giltrap played lead guitar in the band and penned several compositions. Whilst his involvement in the band certainly helped to raise his profile he felt impatient to move on to recording further new albums under his own name. 1970s In 1970, Giltrap signed to MCA Records and released his next album, Testament of Time, which was again a mixture of songs and instrumental pieces. on two future albums. It was to be one of the pieces he chose to play on his first television appearance, on Disco 2. At this stage, he was managed by Miles Copeland who, amongst others, also managed Wishbone Ash. Strings on the album were arranged by Del Newman, who also played keyboards. Newman had already worked with many artists of that era including Cat Stevens. Thus began a lasting friendship, and later Giltrap wrote the foreword for Newman's 2010 autobiography A Touch From God (It's Only Rock and Roll). With Newman's influence, the album had a much fuller sound than Giltrap's previous two albums and he regarded it as a significant step forward. His association with Copeland ended when he moved to Philips Records, releasing the 1973 album entitled Giltrap. This album featured a much larger band. On some of the songs he experimented with early instruments (played by Douglas Wooton and Rod and Joseph Sleeping) and some of his lyrics clearly reflected an interest in historical events. The drummer on this album was Nicko McBrain, who a decade later would join Iron Maiden. The front cover photographs reflect Giltrap as a proud father blowing bubbles together with his then two-year-old son, Jamie. The opening track, "When I See My Son", further reflected that pride. This was the last album on which he sang lead vocals. As he became less convinced by his lyric writing capabilities he began seeking a different path. While popular on the folk and university circuit, Giltrap reached a turning point and received greater recognition during the 1970s. During this time, Giltrap started to concentrate on more purely instrumental pieces, and in 1976 released the album Visionary, based on the art and poetry of William Blake. Whilst recording, he missed the birth of his daughter Sadie, who was born in March 1975. Visionary was produced by Jon Miller, who along with guitarist Roger Hand and keyboard player Rod Edwards were known as Triumvirate Productions. Hand and Edwards, having listened to demos of some of the material for Visionary, decided that it was time for Giltrap to be dragged, initially reluctantly, into the realm of rock music. With this new sound, however, Giltrap found a different audience and gained greater commercial success. The success of this album prompted Giltrap to move on from the singer-songwriter approach and to form the Gordon Giltrap Band, which toured extensively in the UK at that time. Once the demos for Visionary were finished, Giltrap found himself with a three-album record contract with Electric Records. He was then offered a UK tour supporting the English progressive rock band Renaissance. He was invited to appear on BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test hosted by Bob Harris. Supported by his full band, they performed "Robes and Crowns/Awakening" and "Lucifer's Cage". Footage of the latter performance can be seen on the program 'Guitar Heroes at the BBC'. A European tour followed at the end of 1976 as a support act to Wishbone Ash. They played several dates in Germany and were also booked to tour Switzerland. Unfortunately, upon arriving in Zurich Giltrap was hit by a car and broke his collarbone. As he was then unable to play guitar ,the rest of his tour was cancelled. His follow-up album, Perilous Journey, consolidated his success, being named one of the best albums of 1977 by The Sunday Times. It peaked in the UK Albums Chart at No. 29. A single taken from the album, "Heartsong", received extensive airplay and reached No. 21 in the UK Singles Chart. The track was later used as the theme tune of the BBC TV series Holiday. Another of Giltrap's tracks, "The Carnival", was specially commissioned by ITV for the theme tune to ITV's holiday programme Wish You Were Here...?. "Heartsong" has subsequently become the tune for which Giltrap is best known and still features in his live sets. "Heartsong" was eventually nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for the best instrumental/ orchestral piece for that year, losing to Elton John's "Song for Guy". Giltrap later said of the track's creation, "It began with a song I did in the late '60s called 'Starting All Over'. When I lived in London I began to mess around with it and stumbled on the riff for what would become 'Heartsong'. I kept working on it, and eventually recorded the guitar part for it. Then we added the rhythm section from Simon Phillips (drums) and John G. Perry (bass)." "At the time I never thought of this as anything other than a jolly little tune, but my producers Rod Edwards and Roger Hand realized the com.... Discover the Steve Pilkington popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Steve Pilkington books.