Gordon Giltrap (born 6 April, 1948 in Brenchley, Kent) is a renowned English acoustic and electric guitarist and composer, whose musical styles cross multiple genres, including folk, blues, folk rock, pop, classical and rock. Giltrap has released 25 original studio albums, plus numerous live albums and compilations.
Over the years, Giltrap has worked with an amazingly broad range of artists, from rock musicians - including Brian May, Rick Wakeman and Midge Ure to the jazz virtuoso Martin Taylor, the classical guitarist Raymond Burley and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Giltrap has developed a unique guitar playing technique, teaching himself a hybrid technique of plectrum and little finger, in doing so creating the individual sound that is his trademark.
Biography
Gordon was born on 6 April 1948, at the British Home for Mothers and Babies in Brenchley, Kent, UK. The son of a labourer, he grew up in an austere but protective community of terraced houses in Deptford, south-east London.
His obsession with stringed instruments began nine years later, when a friend turned up at the house with an out-of-tune Spanish guitar. Keen to encourage his new hobby, his parents bought him a plastic ukulele with a picture of Elvis on the headstock, then a Martin Coletti archtop jazz guitar with a sunburst finish and a brown canvas case.
Gordon’s first band
Gordon joined his first band when barely in his teens, and relished the opportunity to play songs by his idols - Cliff Richard, The Shadows and The Everly Brothers.
He set his sights on Art College, but bowed to his father’s insistence that he learn “a trade”, and unenthusiastically grafted his way through a series of unrewarding jobs.
