James Gray

The UK Blues Federation named Trevor ?Babajack? Steger their 2023 UK Blues Acoustic Act of the Year. His music is influenced by his passion for early rural Blues which he combines with African rhythms, a sound that marks him out as a distinctive bluesman. Trevor has toured throughout the UK and across Europe, headlining Blues and Roots festivals and has played his unique genre of music in diverse venues, ranging from intimate French cafés to London?s Royal Albert Hall. ?? Trevor has co-written 6 albums and 2 solo albums but he reckons his finest work to date is his 2022 release ?Not Far To Go? which he recorded with a violin player and percussionist. The themes that run through the album are travel and movement, nostalgia and melancholia. His first solo album, ?Sawdust Man?, (2018) received excellent reviews and was followed up by ?The Solemn Truth and Barefaced Lies? which was nominated for the 2020 Blues and Roots Radio Best Album. Now living on his narrowboat on the River Avon, throughout the 1990?s Trevor lived and worked with the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Shona custom requires that when a man's first son is born the father takes on his name, hence Trevor became known as 'Babajack'. (The Father of Jack).? ?When he is singing you cannot do anything else but listen to him ? he has an immediacy and charisma that draws you close to the music and I cannot think of any other solo artist that I?ve heard in the last couple of years who demands your attention in the same way.? - BLUES MATTERS 'Howlin? Wolf meets Screamin? Jay Hawkins....carried on the wings of a wailing slide guitar.' - BLUES IN BRITAIN JAMES GRAY is a troubadour inspired by the troubled, but who presents brutal perspectives in a beautiful way. ?I always write from a first person perspective?, James states. ?I try to get inside the character like Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson or Springsteen, where they write a film within a song, allowing you to picture everything. That?s what I aspire to do.? James' latest single Emmett, My Hero is a fine example of this approach. The song was inspired by the wonderful novel The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.