Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

This is the place to post items relating to Gordon and his music in a general sense, such as his influences, how he composes, which pieces you enjoy most and why etc.

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piotrwargan
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Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby piotrwargan » Mon Apr 04, 2016 8:11 pm

Hello Fans of Gordon Giltrap,

It seems to me that a discussion about favourites has already started in another threads, but what would you think about sharing this: which of Gordon's albums do we listen to most often?

When I thought about Gordon Giltrap albums that I have played most often during the recent months, my personal top 10 could look like this:

Ravens and Lullabies, Guitarmageddon, Visionary, Gordon Giltrap and Friends at The Symphony Hall, Fear of the Dark, Troubadour, The Band Live 1981, Shining Morn, Live at Oxford, Gordon Giltrap.

And what are you listening to most frequently?

All the best,

Piotr

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AndrewD
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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby AndrewD » Tue Apr 05, 2016 3:56 pm

Interesting question Piotr. For me the top 5 most listened to (in no particular order) are:
Visionary
Perilous Journey
Captured from a Point in Time
Troubador
On A Summer's Night

I suspect that Perilous Journey is the most listened to but Captured isn't far behind (Perilous Journey did have a 29 year head start).

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Tom McCauley
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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby Tom McCauley » Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:07 pm

I'm into these albums:

A Matter of Time (with Martin Taylor)
Ravens & Lullabies
Visionary
Captured In A Point In Time
GG Collection
Echoes of Heaven
Shining Morn
Tom McCauley

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Roger
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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby Roger » Wed Apr 06, 2016 12:12 am

Another tough question Piotr :)

At the moment my top 5 consists of (in order):

1 Fear of the Dark
2 Visionary
3 Perilous Journey
4 Ravens and Lullabies
5 Captured from a Point in Time

My top ten would then be completed by (in no particular order):

Shinin Morn, As it Happens, Remember This, Drifter and Peacock Party.

As I've said many times before and will never get tired of saying it, my top 3 are great albums - and I mean GREAT :D

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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby Roger USA » Thu Apr 07, 2016 3:27 pm

Hi Piotr,

A good question! It produced a few surprises for me.

My list below is in a very rough order, but many of them are so close that it is almost a coin toss where they should be in the list. That said Troubadour (both discs) is the clear winner.

Troubadour
Ravens & Lullabies
Live at the Countess of Huntingdon Hall, Worcester
Fear of the Dark
Under This Blue Sky
On a Summer's Night
Shining Morn
Visionary
Perilous Journey
Music for the Small Screen

I was surprised how much I played the Live at the Countess of Huntingdon Hall "bonus" disc!

A special mention should go to Double Visions with Raymond Burley, because it is a great album (and DVD), plus, it was the first Gordon album that appealed to my son Ethan so it has had a lot of plays.

When you look at Gordon's body of work it is truly quite incredible.

All The Best,

Roger

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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby GORDON » Thu Apr 07, 2016 3:42 pm

Roger USA wrote:Hi Piotr,

A good question! It produced a few surprises for me.

My list below is in a very rough order, but many of them are so close that it is almost a coin toss where they should be in the list. That said Troubadour (both discs) is the clear winner.

Troubadour
Ravens & Lullabies
Live at the Countess of Huntingdon Hall, Worcester
Fear of the Dark
Under This Blue Sky
On a Summer's Night
Shining Morn
Visionary
Perilous Journey
Music for the Small Screen

I was surprised how much I played the Live at the Countess of Huntingdon Hall "bonus" disc!

A special mention should go to Double Visions with Raymond Burley, because it is a great album (and DVD), plus, it was the first Gordon album that appealed to my son Ethan so it has had a lot of plays.

When you look at Gordon's body of work it is truly quite incredible.

All The Best,

Roger


Bless you Roger.G

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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby Trevor Raggatt » Fri Apr 08, 2016 1:48 pm

For me my top 10 in approximate order is absolutely...

1) Fear of The Dark
2) Visionary
3) Troubadour
4) Perilous Journey
5) Guitarist (an obscure compilation from the early 1990s - only CD recording I've ever seen of the single version of Heartsong and an amazing acoustic version of Lucifer's Cage)
6) Ravens & Lullabies (incl the bonus disc for the remake of Roots alone!)
7) Shining Morn
8 ) Double Visions (with Raymond Burley)
9) Drifter
10) Peacock Party

And as a bonus disc I will throw in The Long Road Home by Raymond Burley which is a stunning collection of 17 Giltrap tunes interpreted by the great man on classical guitar. Truly wonderful in every way - if you've not heard it you really need to check it out!

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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby steve » Mon Apr 11, 2016 11:25 am

As someone who grew up listening to Gordon Giltrap before I even heard The Beatles' music, the three albums Gordon recorded for Electric will always have a very special place for me. It has already been said that Visionary, Perilous Journey and Fear Of The Dark are all singularly great classic albums but when combined and examined as a body of work from 1975 through 1979, they represent an almost peerless output. People often quote the so-called "classic progressive albums" but few if any of them are as good as Gordon's Electric trilogy. They need to be "promoted" more in my opinion. I'm sure there are many prospective fans out there who don't even know of Gordon's work at all. This has to change.

I regularly contribute to other music fora on the web and often get into friendly debates about which album is the best from a particular period or from a particular artist's output. When I see people endlessly discussing Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells I usually weigh in with a reference to Gordon's superior (in my honest opinion) Visionary album. When the discussion goes cold and there are no responses, not even to question "Gordon who?" you just know that the people in question have likely stayed very close to the safe "popular classics" and rarely ventured off the middle ground path to investigate the lesser known artists like Gordon.

In terms of the other albums, Troubadour was and will always remain a personal favourite. We saw Gordon touring that album many times and once joked that we barely needed to own a copy seeing as though we could just as easily go and watch Gordon perform it live if we wanted to hear it! In part thanks to Time To Reflect I've been spinning Drifter more lately along with Under This Blue Sky. The live albums "Live At Oxford", "The River Sessions", "The Band Live 1981" and "Live At The BBC" are all getting a good spin too!

I have the Huntingdon Hall DVD but if it was a VHS I swear there would be a hole by now in the tape where "Sallie's Song" is. It's a fascinating watch and a great performance of a really beautiful piece. That guitar sounds incredible.

I'm surprised that only Trevor has thus far mentioned The Peacock party. This is such an under-rated album in my opinion and again it could do with a little more "public exposure".

I recently picked up the remastered "Matter Of Time" with Martin Taylor. This is a really good collection and warmly recommended.
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect ~ Jean Cocteau

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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby piotrwargan » Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:52 am

This exchange of our "most listened to" pointed me in the direction of Gordon's compositions played by Raymond Burley and thanks to Tom's radio shows, I for the first time heard "Across the Pond", so I am grateful for this.


Steve: this is true what you write about people's listening habits. Most of the time and probably most of the radio stations (at least where I live) play the same tunes over and over again. As a result of this imprinting (if this can be the right word), people tend not to venture away from the "safe classic". On our Polish Radio 3, there are several presenters who go very far away from this mainstream music and thanks to their activity this national station brings a lot of great but less known music to our homes (it can be heard on the internet as well).

My favourite programme called in Polish "3 Wymiary Gitary" (3 Dimensions of the Guitar) concentrates on guitar music and Gordon's music was there several times (4 tunes from Ravens and Lullabies). The secret, however, to this was that a record was sent to the radio by a certain Polish Gordon Giltrap fan (can you guess his name ;-)?). I still wait for some tunes from the Visionary (a special copy autographed by Gordon was sent to Piotr Baron, the presenter of 3 Dimensions long time ago when "Moneyfacturing" was put on the list of candidate songs for Polish Radio 3 Top Chart. The reactions of the listeners and of the presenter to the compositions from Ravens and Lullabies were enthusiastic, and a lot of fans from different parts of Poland wrote to the Radio and mentioned the three progressive rock albums of Gordon. Anyway, this was only one of the ways to make Gordons' music heard in my country, the other were more private and for friends, who could hear Gordon's music from vinyl records or watch the first live concert of the Ravens and Lullabies Band from Lydney (2013) filmed so greatly by Sue. Some of my friends were exposed to Gordon’s music earlier: the people who watched the mime theatre play in the 1980s called “King Arthur’s Knights” could never forget Awakenings or Lucifer’s Cage or The Echoing Green. Some (unfortunately very short) video fragments from this play can be watched (links are in one of my previous posts). If this translated into their listening habits is another story ;-)
Last edited by piotrwargan on Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby GORDON » Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:59 am

piotrwargan wrote:This exchange of our "most listened to" pointed me in the direction of Gordon's compositions played by Raymond Burley and thanks to Tom's radio shows, I for the first time heard "Across the Pond", so I am grateful for this.


Steve: this is true what you write about people's listening habits. Most of the time (and probably most of the radio stations, at least where I live) play the same tunes over and over again. As a result of this imprinting (if this can be the right word), people tend not to venture away from the "safe classic". On our Polish Radio 3, there are several presenters who go very far away from this mainstream music and thanks to their activity this national station brings a lot of great but less known music to our homes (it can be heard on the internet as well).

My favourite programme called in Polish "3 Wymiary Gitary" (3 Dimensions of the Guitar) concentrates on guitar music and Gordon's music was there several times (4 tunes from Ravens and Lullabies). The secret, however, to this was that a record was sent to the radio by a certain Polish Gordon Giltrap fan (can you guess his name ;-)?). I still wait for some tunes from the Visionary (a special copy autographed by Gordon was sent to Piotr Baron, the presenter of 3 Dimensions long time ago when "Moneyfacturing" was put on the list of candidate songs for Polish Radio 3 Top Chart. The reactions of the listeners and of the presenter to the compositions from Ravens and Lullabies were enthusiastic, and a lot of fans from different parts of Poland wrote to the Radio and mentioned the three progressive rock albums of Gordon. Anyway, this was only one of the ways to make Gordons' music heard in my country, the other were more private and for friends, who could hear Gordon's music from vinyl records or watch the first live concert of the Ravens and Lullabies Band from Lydney (2013) filmed so greatly by Sue. Some of my friends were exposed to Gordon’s music earlier: the people who watched the mime theatre play in the 1980s called “King Arthur’s Knights” could never forget Awakenings or Lucifer’s Cage or The Echoing Green. Some (unfortunately very short) video fragments from this play can be watched (links are in one of my previous posts). If this translated into their listening habits is another story ;-)


Piotr.

I have said this many times my friend.Thanks for keeping the faith.

Love to you both.

G&H.

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Tom McCauley
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Re: Gordon's albums: what do you listen to most often?

Postby Tom McCauley » Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:25 am

piotrwargan wrote:This exchange of our "most listened to" pointed me in the direction of Gordon's compositions played by Raymond Burley and thanks to Tom's radio shows, I for the first time heard "Across the Pond", so I am grateful for this.


Steve: this is true what you write about people's listening habits. Most of the time (and probably most of the radio stations, at least where I live) play the same tunes over and over again. As a result of this imprinting (if this can be the right word), people tend not to venture away from the "safe classic". On our Polish Radio 3, there are several presenters who go very far away from this mainstream music and thanks to their activity this national station brings a lot of great but less known music to our homes (it can be heard on the internet as well).

My favourite programme called in Polish "3 Wymiary Gitary" (3 Dimensions of the Guitar) concentrates on guitar music and Gordon's music was there several times (4 tunes from Ravens and Lullabies). The secret, however, to this was that a record was sent to the radio by a certain Polish Gordon Giltrap fan (can you guess his name ;-)?). I still wait for some tunes from the Visionary (a special copy autographed by Gordon was sent to Piotr Baron, the presenter of 3 Dimensions long time ago when "Moneyfacturing" was put on the list of candidate songs for Polish Radio 3 Top Chart. The reactions of the listeners and of the presenter to the compositions from Ravens and Lullabies were enthusiastic, and a lot of fans from different parts of Poland wrote to the Radio and mentioned the three progressive rock albums of Gordon. Anyway, this was only one of the ways to make Gordons' music heard in my country, the other were more private and for friends, who could hear Gordon's music from vinyl records or watch the first live concert of the Ravens and Lullabies Band from Lydney (2013) filmed so greatly by Sue. Some of my friends were exposed to Gordon’s music earlier: the people who watched the mime theatre play in the 1980s called “King Arthur’s Knights” could never forget Awakenings or Lucifer’s Cage or The Echoing Green. Some (unfortunately very short) video fragments from this play can be watched (links are in one of my previous posts). If this translated into their listening habits is another story ;-)


Hi Piotr,

Many thanks for your compliments. I much appreciate that! :)
I shall be doing more shows of Gordon's music in the distant future, but got to get my birthday celebrations over and done with first!! :D

Maybe I'll get round to doing another special, maybe next month! :)

Cheers,
Tom
Tom McCauley


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