Inverness-born Steve Gibb, who has appeared on Broadway and in the West End, found himself with – quite literally – more time on his hands due to the ongoing pandemic.
While he’s usually busy performing as part of Jersey Boys in the US and writing music for TV adverts, Steve decided to use his extra free time to focus on his passion – Celtic music. And the successful musician recently released a fingerstyle guitar album titled The Boatman featuring his versions of traditional Celtic tunes.
“I always wanted to record music just for me, but I’ve always been too busy writing for other people,” said Steve.
“So when the pandemic happened, I spent a lot of time at home, practising and looking back at some old music that I’d written and I just really wanted to put some stuff out on a proper album.”
Steve’s new album, which was released in May, features 12 tracks of solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar music – arrangements of traditional Scottish and Irish folk tunes.
Steve Gibb goes from TV adverts to solo album
The composer said: “I have enough music for six or seven CDs, so I just really wanted to curate this album a little bit and tell my personal story.
“Some of the songs are pieces I have written, some are just arrangements of traditional Celtic tunes and some are slightly more modern pieces.”
While Steve often plays a lot of instruments to create musical arrangements for adverts, he only plays the guitar with his fingertips on this album.
Steve said: “With a solo guitar, you’re a bit naked, you cannot cover anything up so it’s very challenging.
“I’m essentially just playing with my fingers – I’m not using a guitar pick at all on this album.”
Covering memorable tunes from his youth
One of the songs featuring on the album is Fear a Batha, which was the first Celtic tune Steve remembers from his youth.
“It had quite an impact on me,” said the musician.
“I love the melody and I actually did an arrangement of this when I was back in school.
“It was obviously a different arrangement, but the tune had really stuck with me.”
Dedicating song to music teacher
The most recent piece written for the album is titled Elegy for a Rainbow, which Steve wrote after he found out his guitar teacher from his time studying at London’s Royal Academy of Music passed away.
Steve added: “This album is very personal. I didn’t just want to put out a bunch of Celtic tunes which have been done before many times – I wanted to do something different.
“I tried to find more contemporary tunes. For example, there’s Highland Catherdral, which is a well-known bagpipe piece, so I thought I could do a guitar version of it.”
Always drawn to the sound of guitar
Steve said he was always drawn to the sound of the guitar, which motivated him to study classical guitar and composition at Edinburgh’s Napier College of Science & Technology (now Edinburgh Napier University) and eventually at London’s Royal Academy of Music.
He said: “I was a full-on classical guitar player for a while, but then I changed the focus of my career – I was always a bit musical theatre-curious.
“I happened to be reading a magazine and I saw an advert saying they were looking for a musician for The Buddy Holly Story.
“I auditioned and I think because I play a lot of instruments, it was quite useful to them. I ended up getting cast for the show and I was on a UK tour for more than two years.”
From West End to Broadway
Following the tour, Steve became the musical director for the London production.
“And that led to other shows and it eventually led me to America, where I stayed and I’m now getting involved with other productions – sometimes as an actor and sometimes as a musician,” said Steve.
“I was working on Jersey Boys for its run – I was almost at a point of leaving America, but I got a call from a friend of mine saying there was this production coming to Broadway and that they were looking for more musicians.
“I met the musical director, got cast and that show ran for 11 years.”
You can listen to The Boatman by Steve Gibb on all major music streaming platforms including iTunes and Spotify. If you wish to purchase a physical copy, click here.