David Gray - White Ladder

It’s so very, very good to be reacquainted with White Ladder, this the 20th anniversary limited deluxe edition comes with as you would probably expect some previously unreleased tracks of original demos, rarities and B sides and for the first time ever it’s even released on vinyl.

I still have an original purchased cd copy somewhere in the household! It’s an album that I have always rated very highly and contains a song that is very special to me in Babylon.Back in the day as I left the hospital in July 2000 after my son Tom had just been born, it was indeed a Friday night and unlike David Gray, who was going nowhere in the song, I was heading back home to inform the then five year old Lily that she was now a sister, it came on the radio as I headed home and I turned it up extremely loud. It was a very high moment that’s for sure, it was a very special song and album at that time and now every time that I hear that song, I am naturally transported back to that beautiful moment in time. Wow! The power of music.

I first literally stumbled across a very close to quitting the music business David Gray and his acoustic guitar way back in September 1994 at the Cambridge Junction when he was supporting Ian Mcnabb. I had never heard of him up until then, but he left a bit of a mark on me as a very impressive support act. Then some three years and three months later he released this classic, that became quite a soundtrack to that period not just for me but for many others judging by not only the sales figures but also the radio play at that time.
It was recorded in his terrace house in Stoke Newington with a drum machine and was initially released on his own record label. Whoever would’ve thought that a bloke that writes his own songs, plays with just an acoustic guitar and uses a drum machine would’ve caught on? Gray has certainly gone onto inspire a generation, with young Ed Sheeran stating an obvious admiring influence.