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Reeves Gabrels is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. A member of The Cure since 2012, Gabrels is also known for his work with David Bowie and Tin Machine from 1988 to…
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Investigate this subjectReeves Gabrels (born June 4, 1956) is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. A member of The Cure since 2012, Gabrels is also known for his work with David Bowie and Tin Machine from 1988 to 1999.
Reeves Gabrels is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. A member of The Cure since 2012, Gabrels is also known for his work with David Bowie and Tin Machine from 1988 to 1999. He also fronts the band Reeves Gabrels & His Imaginary Friends, which is based in Nashville.
Reeves Gabrels (born June 4, 1956) is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. A member of The Cure since 2012, Gabrels is also known for his work with David Bowie and Tin Machine from 1988 to 1999. He also fronts the band Reeves Gabrels & His Imaginary Friends, which is based in Nashville.
As a guitarist, Gabrels is recognized for his virtuosity and versatility, and been praised for his ability to "explore sonic extremes with a great, adaptive intuition for what each song needs most." He has been characterized as "one of the most daring rock-guitar improvisers since Jimi Hendrix".
Reeves Gabrels was born in Staten Island, New York on June 4, 1956. His mother Claire was a typist, and his father Carl was a part-time jazz musician and worked as a deckhand on tugboats in New York Harbor. Gabrels started playing guitar at age 13, and the following year his father arranged for lessons with his friend Turk Van Lake. Van Lake was a professional musician who had played with Benny Goodman and others.
After high school, Gabrels attended the Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts in New York. He took lessons from jazz guitarist John Scofield. Gabrels then moved to Boston to attend the Berklee School of Music, though he did not graduate.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Gabrels was a member of bands including The Dark, Life on Earth, The Atom Said, Rubber Rodeo, The Bentmen, Deaf School, Too Happy, and Modern Farmer. His first professional recording was in 1983 with the Christopher Jones Band. Modern Farmer, which also included David Hull, released an album in 1994.
Gabrels first met David Bowie in 1987 during a Bowie tour for which Gabrels' then-wife worked as a publicist. Gabrels's first project with Bowie was a re-imagining and rearrangement of the song "Look Back in Anger" for live performances combining dance, music, and video as part of a benefit for London's Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1988. Bowie expressed appreciation for Gabrels's guitar work for the project.
Later in 1988, Gabrels and Bowie formed the hard rock band Tin Machine with Hunt Sales and Tony Sales, and the band released two albums before disbanding in 1992. Gabrels continued to work with Bowie until 1999, co-writing and co-producing material on the albums Outside (1995), Earthling (1997), and Hours (1999). "Dead Man Walking," a Bowie/Gabrels song from Earthling, was nominated for a Grammy award. Gabrels and Bowie also created the soundtrack for the computer game Omikron: The Nomad Soul. He parted ways with Bowie in late 1999, and his last performance with Bowie was for VH1 Storytellers.
From 1989 through his departure ten years later, Gabrels was the guitarist on four concert tours with Bowie: the Tin Machine Tour of 1989, the It's My Life Tour (1991-92), the Outside Tour (1995–96) and the Earthling Tour (1997).
Gabrels first met Robert Smith of The Cure during rehearsals for Bowie's 50th Birthday Concert on January 9, 1997 at Madison Square Garden. Bowie had invited Smith to sing at this event, for which Gabrels served as musical director. Gabrels then made a guest appearance on the 1997 Cure single "Wrong Number" and appeared with the band several times during their 1997 tour. Gabrels, Smith, and Cure drummer Jason Cooper then formed the side project COGASM in 1998 to record the song "Sign From God" for Orgazmo, a film directed by Trey Parker. Gabrels and Smith co-wrote the song "Yesterday's Gone", with Smith on vocals, for Gabrels's 1999 album Ulysses (Della Notte).
Smith and Gabrels stayed in touch; in 2012, Gabrels was invited to play as a guest during several Cure concerts. Gabrels then became an official member of the Cure and has performed with them ever since, though his first official recording with the band wouldn't happen until years later when they started recording Songs of a Lost World. Gabrels was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2019 as a member of the Cure, having initially been left off the list of nine current and former members.
Gabrels has released six solo albums on which he served as singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter, starting with The Sacred Squall of Now in 1995. During this period he also contributed to several movie and video game soundtracks, including Deus Ex.
His 1999 album Ulysses (Della Notte) was nominated for a Yahoo! Internet Award in 1999 as a then-pathbreaking Internet-only release, before becoming available the following year on CD. His 2005 album Rockonica was widely praised for its experimentation. For example, Guitar Player's Andy Ellis wrote: "Gabrels walks the line between song structure and wiggy sonics like no one else. [...] But bubbling and roiling under and around this foundation are layers of eerie, broken sounds and oddball textures. And Gabrels isn't shy about juxtaposing genres."
His fifth and sixth albums were released under the name Reeves Gabrels & His Imaginary Friends, featuring collaborators from the music scene in Nashville, Tennessee whom Reeves first assembled in 2007. Their self-titled 2015 album received a favorable review from Vintage Guitar, and their 2017 live album was named as one of the best releases of the year by the guitar aficionado publications Guitar Moderne and Premier Guitar. Gabrels continues to tour with this ensemble during breaks in his work with the Cure.
Gabrels is an in-demand session and touring musician, starting in 1993 with Paul Rodgers, and later with artists such as Jeffrey Gaines and Los Duran. He was briefly a member of the European heavy metal supergroup X-World/5.
After moving to Nashville, Tennessee in 2006, Gabrels often collaborates informally with local musicians for live performances in small venues. These impromptu collaborations led to some studio albums, such as The Magnificent Others and Sonic Mining Company. During this period Gabrels began collaborating periodically with the Boston-based improvisational and instrumental group Club d'Elf, appearing on their album Now I U
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