Kevin Gilbert

Kevin Matthew Gilbert (November 20, 1966 - May 17, 1996) was an American songwriter, musician, composer, producer and collaborator born in Sacramento, California, later living in San Mateo, California where he attended Junipero Serra High School. He died at age 29 in Los Angeles from apparent autoerotic asphyxiation.

Career

The lone Toy Matinee album (eponymously named) was released in 1990 but effectively shelved by the record company, so Gilbert assembled a new backing band to promote it, eventually getting two successful singles released: "The Ballad of Jenny Ledge" and "Last Plane Out".

Later, Gilbert was part of the songwriting collective "The Tuesday Music Club" that met at producer Bill Bottrell's studio in Pasadena, California. Gilbert introduced his then-girlfriend Sheryl Crow to Bottrell and his fellow Club musicians and the sessions allowed Crow to workshop new material, leading to the recording of her breakthrough debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club. Gilbert co-wrote many of the songs on that album, including 1995 Grammy Record of the Year "All I Wanna Do". Crow later acrimoniously split with most of the musicians in the collective and only producer Bottrell and drummer Brian MacLeod were involved in her follow-up album. Meanwhile the remainder of the collective worked with singer-songwriters Susanna Hoffs and Linda Perry on two more albums.

]] Gilbert continued to work in television and movie soundtrack work as well as studio work and producing and eventually released his first solo album Thud (1995) as well as partially reforming Giraffe to perform the Genesis piece The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway at Progfest '94. Gilbert's manager sent a copy of the recording to Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford who were searching for a new Genesis front man to replace Phil Collins. His manager, Jon Rubin, had come to Gilbert's home to tell him that he had managed to get him an audition and discovered his dead body.

Several albums of Gilbert's music have been released posthumously, beginning in 1999 with the live album Kevin Gilbert & Thud - Live at the Troubadour (consisting primarily of songs from Thud) and a compilation of Giraffe material that he had been working on.

Gilbert's second solo album, The Shaming of the True, (2000) was also released posthumously. The album was largely incomplete, but Gilbert's estate asked Spock's Beard drummer and close friend of Gilbert's, Nick D'Virgilio, to complete it based on the extant tapes and the album planning notes Gilbert left. Following this, an "industrial" album of music performed by Gilbert's group, Kaviar, was released in 2002.

In November 2002 Nick D'Virgilio headlined Progwest in Claremont, CA and played the entire The Shaming of the True album live.

In October 2009 three new works were released; Nuts and Bolts (collectively a body of mostly unreleased songs and mixes, released as two individual CD albums) and Welcome to Joytown - Thud: Live at The Troubadour, a DVD/CD double-pack which expanded on the original 1999 release.

A live performance from Gilbert's promotional group for Toy Matinee was made available in March 2010.

Discography

References

External links

Category:1966 births Category:1996 deaths Category:People from Sacramento, California Category:Accidental deaths in California Category:American progressive rock music groups Category:American rock singer-songwriters