And the Hello and joining us for this

episode is a highly accomplished Ivan Novello winning British singer

songwriter and musician who rocketed to fame in the late 90s via his

breakthrough record White Ladder which over two decades on is one of the biggest selling UK albums of all time.

In February of this year he released his acclaimed 12th studio album, The Gorgeous Skellig, recorded at Edwin Collins Studio on the Sutherland coast of Scotland

and named after a mysterious and remote location off the west coast of Ireland.

We're delighted to welcome the excellent David Gray to the show.

David was born in 1968 in Seale Cheshire and grew up in Manchester until he was nine

when he moved with his family to Solver, a small fishing village in Pembrokeshire in the southwest of Wales.

He took piano lessons as a child, but gave them up around the age of 12, then discovered an affinity

for indie music as he entered his teens, particularly groups like The Cure, The Smiths, and Cocto Twins, as well as singer-songwriters

like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Tom White, and Scarbands such as Madness and The Specials.

While at school he enjoyed writing poetry and began teaching himself guitar and writing his own songs around the age of 15, forming his first band at 16.

David was also a keen artist and after leaving school attended the Liverpool School of Art here in our hometown.

Whilst there he sold some of his paintings and put the proceeds towards recording his band's first

demos. These came to the attention of Polydore A&R Rep Holden who encouraged our guests to go solo and move to the attention of Polydore A&R Rep Holden who encouraged our guests to go solo and move to London,

which he did and signed a Virgin imprint Hunt records in 1992.

David's debut album, A Century Ends, recorded in less than a week, was released in 1993 and did particularly

well in Ireland during part of the exposure he received on the RTE Television Series No Disco,

and his success in that territory would help sustain his career for the next few years.

Following the release of 1994's Flesh, he signed to EMI, but 1996's Cell Cell Cell

ironically failed to do that and he was unceremoniously dropped by his label.

...