Colin

Bio:

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I was born Manhattan in New York City. Now I live across the Bridge in Brooklyn. I like pawnshops, second hand stores, finding old instruments and imagining the people who played them before me. I keep all my old cassette tapes (and records and CD’s). When I was a kid, I used to buy groceries for an old man in my building named Ebenezar Goldberg and I would spend the money I made on tapes at Tower Records near Lincoln Center. I took in any kind of music I could get my hands on. I bought tapes from people who played in the subways or in Central Park and I would sit in the bathtub and listen to them, or I would put them on my walkman and walk around the city, taking it all in. I had some friends who were also into music and we would dub tapes for each other and meet up in the auditorium at school between classes and play everyday. We had a band called “Steel Chicken.” I still play with the keyboard player from that band.

At 18, I finished high school and took off to see the world. I picked grapes and apples and olives in Italy, washed dishes at a restaurant in Edinborough, Scotland. I started playing my guitar and singing on the street to make some money. I met some great people who taught me more about life and music than I learned in almost any other year in my life.

Music is on my mind in one way or another most of the time. When I am not playing or listening to music I get depressed like some wilting plant that gets put on a heater in the winter. Music is my joy, and joy is what keeps me alive. I have been fortunate enough to have jobs that have allowed me to continue to make music, and I have worn a lot of hats as a musician. I have composed for chamber ensembles, for TV, theater, and film, arranged string sections for other songwriters, played guitar, banjo, dobro and harmonica on recording sessions, taught children and adults, and written songs for other singers. I have worked with many great musicians, actors, dancers and other types of performers. I have also painted signs, painted houses, worked as a bike messenger, watered plants, fed chickens and done countless other jobs that musicians sometimes do to pay the rent.

Thanks for reading and drop me a note if you feel like it.

PRESS:

"...living with an album like Colin’s, where the first entrance of his voice hits such a perfect tone of conceptual resonance, is a reminder of how rare it actually is to find such perfect compatibility between singer and songwriter, whether both are the same person or not."
Tamara Turner, CD Baby

"His folk songs are steeped in storytelling, with characters and images drawn from old Americana."
NPR Music

"[McGrath]celebrates the extraordinary beauty of ordinary living. He knows when it is time to help you stop and smell the roses and when to make you wake up and smell the coffee."
Tim Readman, Writer and Critic, Penguin Eggs

"On CD Baby this CD is recommended for lovers of James Taylor, Jackson Brown and Paul Simon, but we have not heard these gentlemen as good as Colin McGrath since the seventies and while McGrath’s style shows a few similarities, we hear foremost his most engaging and very own face."
Eric van Domburg Scipio, Pop Music Heaven

"Another theme that runs throughout the album is that while many of these songs have a “feel-good” acoustic sound, there is an underlying sense of sadness and contemplation that gives this album its deep-layered appeal."
Muzic Reviews

Colin's CD Baby page.

Member Since:

March 12, 2007

Members:

Influences:

Willis Allen Ramsey, James McMurtry, Michael Hurley, Elvis Costello, Stephin Merritt, Todd Snider, Ben Folds, John Prine, Ron Sexsmith, Paul Simon, Martin Sexton, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Donny Hathaway, Bruce Molsky, Dirk Powell, David Wilcox, Burt Jansch, Chris Smithers, Chris Whitley, Nick Drake, Jackson Browne, Townes Van Zandt, Jorge Drexler, Bonnie Raitt, Hall and Oates (what can I say, their hits are on my list), Walt Koken (particularly his original banjo tunes), The Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, The Doobie Brothers, Bill Withers, Ray Charles, Lucinda Williams, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Boss, Big Star, Aretha Franklin, Grace Jones, James Taylor, The Police, Led Zeppelin, Igor Stravinsky

Sounds Like:

Record Label:

Unsigned