Gregory Gray (20 May 1959 – 25 April 2019), born Paul Lerwill, was a Northern Irish singer and songwriter. He began his career as a member of Rosetta Stone, a 1970s boy band, and became an influential cult musician who made indie music and videos under the pseudonym Mary Cigarettes. He published his work on online platforms such as YouTube and SoundCloud. During the course of his career his musical style ranged over an eclectic spectrum of pop, post-punk, indie rock, electronic dance music, jazz and folk.
Gregory Gray | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Paul Lerwill |
| Also known as | Mary Cigarettes |
| Born | 20 May 1959 Portrush, Northern Ireland |
| Died | 25 April 2019 (aged 59) Hertfordshire, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
| Labels | |
| Website | |
His post-punk band Perfect Crime was a support act for U2, Eurythmics, Talking Heads, and OMD.
Early life
edit
Lerwill was born in Portrush, a seaside town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on 20 May 1959 as Paul Lerwill.[1] His mother was English and his father was Anglo-Indian. He had three brothers and a sister.[2] When Lerwill was 10 years old, the family moved to Singapore, where they lived at the RAF Changi airbase for three years, as his father was stationed there with the British Royal Air Force. It was there that he learned to play the guitar.[3][4]
On returning to Portrush, as a 14-year-old he accompanied the "Singing Farmer" John Watt on the guitar in the Northern Star pub in Ballymoney, which Lerwill's father owned. He also worked in amusement arcades in Portrush and as a DJ in Kelly's, a local nightclub.[4][3] When he left school at 16, he moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he worked as a DJ until he was 19.[2]
Recording career
editLerwill started his recording career as a guitarist with the boy band Rosetta Stone, originally called the Young City Stars, in 1979. The band was managed by Tam Paton, the former manager of the Bay City Rollers. Lerwill was a replacement for Ian Mitchell, who had performed with both the Bay City Rollers and Rosetta Stone.[1]
He recorded with the band and spent two years touring around the world with it.[3] Rosetta Stone's output was mainly cover versions of 1950s and 1960s pop hits.[5] In the UK they appeared on the children's TV programme Crackerjack. The only country where they were very successful was Japan, where they performed sold-out shows in arenas that could accommodate 6,000 people.[1]
In 1981, he left Rosetta Stone, returned to Northern Ireland, and changed his name to Gregory Gray to disassociate himself from his pop boy-band past.[5]
Perfect Crime
editGray formed Perfect Crime, a four-piece post-punk band, for which he was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter, in 1981. The other original members of the group were Donal Boyle (guitar), George Nelson (bass), and Pete Kerr (drums). The group released two singles on MCA records, "Brave" in 1983 and "I Feel Like an Eskimo" in 1984, before breaking up in 1984. The band was promoted in the UK and gave performances on television.[6] A rehearsal space was provided for the group by Dominican nuns in Portstewart.[3]
The group was a support act for U2, Eurythmics, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Talking Heads, and Paul Young.[3] On their own, they toured the UK, often performing in university towns and small venues in rural Northern Ireland. In provincial regions, Gray's flamboyant style was often the target of hecklers, to whom he dealt sharp-witted put-downs.[6]
Perfect Crime was an opening act for U2 on the first leg of the War Tour international concert tour on 28 March 1983 at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.[7] Along with Steel Pulse, Big Country, Eurythmics, and Simple Minds, Perfect Crime performed before a crowd of 15,000 on 14 August 1983, at a nine-hour concert at Phoenix Park Racecourse, Dublin, when they were supporting U2 on a later leg of the War Tour.[8] It was described by RTÉ as "the rock event of the year".[9] Perfect Crime's set received positive press reviews.[10]
Solo career
edit"Gregory Gray is of major significance ... because he has attempted to extend the Irish pop lexicon in important directions. Gray is also of interest as his music has articulated the diverse aspects of gay identity/ies as well as addressing gay audiences (though in no sense exclusively so) ... As [Ireland's] first 'out' gay pop performer, his story is of further interest as he has been virtually erased from the dominant discourse of Irish rock."
McLaughlin, Noel; McLoone, Martin (2012) "Roads not taken? Gregory Gray" in Rock and Popular Music in Ireland: Before and After U2.[6]: p. 254
Gray was signed as a solo artist to CBS Records in 1985. His album Think of Swans was released in 1986. It was produced by Walter Samuel and featured the double-bass player Danny Thompson. Two singles, "Sensual" and "Books to Read Twice", were released from the album. A music video of "Sensual" was aired regularly on MTV.[6] Gray made appearances on UK television and radio shows, including being interviewed by Eamonn Holmes and on The Dave Fanning Show. He toured venues in England and Northern Ireland.[6]: p. 259 However, the album did not sell well enough, and his contract was cancelled the same year.[11][12]
His second solo album, Strong at Broken Places, was produced by Davitt Sigerson and released by Atco Records, a subsidiary of PolyGram, in 1990. Sigerson became the CEO of EMI in 1994,[13] and he signed Gray to that label, on which he released Euroflake in Silverlake in 1995. It was produced by Stephen Hague. Its title is a reference to the Silverlake gay district of Los Angeles. These two albums were released in the United States, mainland Europe, and East Asia, but not in the UK.[6] They received favourable reviews in Rolling Stone and were popular on US student radio. They were a hit in Japan and sold well in southern Europe.[11]
Mary Cigarettes
editIn the late 1990s, Gray and his partner moved from Northern Ireland to Hertfordshire on the outskirts of London, where they bought a home and built a music room where Gray created his own work independently. He began to make his work available for free on platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube, under the deliberately ambiguous nom de plume Mary Cigarettes; he continued to use the name Gregory Gray in his personal life.[5][11]
As Mary Cigarettes he became more adventurous and experimental, embracing a diverse range of styles, including indie pop and rock, techno, jazz, and folk.[6] He collaborated with Fish Go Deep, a duo from Cork, creating electronic dance music.[11] His music was admired by the British musician and radio presenter Tom Robinson, who played Mary Cigarettes' tracks on his programme on BBC Radio 6 Music.[5]
In 2012, Noel McLaughlin, a senior lecturer in film, television, and popular music at the University of Northumbria, and Martin McLoone, Emeritus Professor in Media Studies at the University of Ulster, published the book Rock and Popular Music in Ireland Before and After U2 with a chapter dedicated to the work of Gray as a solo artist working under his own name, his work with Perfect Crime and his work under the Mary Cigarettes nom de plume.[6]
Musical style
editDuring the course of his career, Gray's musical style ranged over an eclectic spectrum of pop, post-punk, indie rock, electronic dance music, jazz and folk.[14]
Personal life
editWhile Gray (then Lerwill) was in Rosetta Stone he had a romantic relationship with Tam Paton, the band's manager, and became involved with a hedonistic social circle that included Freddie Mercury.[1]
After leaving Rosetta Stone in 1981, he legally changed his name to Gregory Gray to put that period of his life behind him.[11]
He came out publicly as gay in the mid-1980s; he was the first well-known Irish musician, north or south, to do so. Although he was openly gay and some of his songs and videos had gay themes, he didn't brand himself as a "gay artist" as he did not want to be constrained by labels.[2] Nevertheless, he has been referred to as a "gay icon" in the media.[5][11]
In the mid-1980s he bought a small, isolated farm and cottage on the North Antrim coast, which he used a base for writing and recording.[6] After being dropped from the CBS label in 1986, he retreated to the farm for several months.[12]
After a short illness, Gregory Gray died on 25 April 2019 at his home in Hertfordshire that he had shared with his partner for over 20 years.[3] Following his wishes, he was cremated with no funeral service as he did not want anyone "crying over the coffin".[5]
Discography (selected)
edit| Year | Title | Release format | Record label | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Caught in the Act | LP | EMI | As Paul Lerwill, with Rosetta Stone.[15] |
| 1983 | "Brave" | Single | MCA Records | With Perfect Crime.[6] |
| 1984 | "I Feel Like an Eskimo" | Single | MCA Records | With Perfect Crime.[6] |
| 1986 | Think of Swans | LP | CBS Records | As Gregory Gray.[11] |
| 1990 | Strong at Broken Places | CD | Atco Records | As Gregory Gray.[6] |
| 1995 | Euroflake in Silverlake | CD | EMI | As Gregory Gray. With Guy Pratt as a session musician.[16] |
| 1995 | "The Pope Does Not Smoke Dope" | Single | EMI | CD single released from the Euroflake in Silverlake album.[16][17] |
| 2006 | "Nobody Really Knows" | YouTube video | Self-published on YouTube | As Mary Cigarettes.[18] |
| 2009 | "Keep Your Powder Dry" | YouTube video | Self-published on YouTube | As Mary Cigarettes.[19] |
| 2009 | "Burning Bridges That Never Really Mattered" | YouTube video | Self-published on YouTube | As Mary Cigarettes.[20] |
| 2010 | "Whatever Turns You On" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2010 | "Jimmy Page" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21][22] |
| 2010 | "Failure and Redemption" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2010 | "I Guess U Had 2 Be There" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2011 | "In the Land of the Harley Davidson" | YouTube video | Self-published on YouTube | As Mary Cigarettes.[23] |
| 2012 | "Next Years Ghost" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2012 | "Middle Class White Trash Ways" | YouTube video | Self-published on YouTube | As Mary Cigarettes.[24] |
| 2013 | "International House of Pancakes" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2014 | "Madman in the Rain" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2015 | "Hard Times Lately" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2016 | "Full English Breakfast" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2018 | "Time Is Not Cheap Anymore" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
| 2018 | "Big Fat Mouth" | MP3 | Self-published on SoundCloud | As Mary Cigarettes.[21] |
Bibliography
edit- McLaughlin, Noel; McLoone, Martin (2012) "Roads not taken? Gregory Gray" in Rock and Popular Music in Ireland: Before and After U2, Chapter 10, pp. 253–276. Dublin / Portland, Oregon: Irish Academic Press ISBN 978-0716530770
References
edit- ^ a b c d Clark, Stuart (1 May 2019) Gregory Gray, AKA Mary Cigarettes has died in Hot Press. Retrieved 2 June 2019
- ^ a b c Clark, Stuart (August 1996) "The Greatest Irish Rock Story Never Told" in Hot Press, vol. 20, issue 16.
- ^ a b c d e f Gregory Gray: 'My life story must read as a manual in how not to become successful. But it all turned out pretty great in the end' in The Irish News, 18 May 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019
- ^ a b Culkin, Una (29 May 2019) Portrush-born musician who was hailed as ‘greatest Irish rock story never told’ in Belfast News Letter. Retrieved 9 June 2019
- ^ a b c d e f Bannister, Matthew (host); Robinson, Tom; McLaughlin, Noel (31 May 2019) Gregory Gray: The Irish singer who went from boy band to cult musician on BBC Radio 4. Last Word. Radio broadcast available on BBC Sounds (7 min). Retrieved 6 June 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l McLaughlin, Noel; McLoone, Martin (2012) "Roads not taken? Gregory Gray" in Rock and Popular Music in Ireland: Before and After U2, Chapter 10, pp. 253–276. Dublin / Portland, Oregon: Irish Academic Press
- ^ U2 concert tours. Royal Concert Hall Nottingham 28 March 1983. on @U2. Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ U2 Tours. War. 14 August 1983 on @U2. Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ RTE Archives. Rock Event of the Year – 1983 on RTE Archives. Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ Donovan, Chris, et al. (1983) Review of "A Day at the Races" in Hot Press vol. 7, issue 6.
- ^ a b c d e f g McLaughlin, Noel (4 May 2019) Gregory Gray, 1959–2019: Influential Irish Post-punk Pioneer & Gay Icon Passes Away in Front View Magazine. Retrieved 6 June 2019
- ^ a b Mary Cigarettes at Frank Sinatra's grave. on YouTube (6 min) He speaks briefly about being dropped from CBS during this video. Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ Sigerson, Davitt. Contemporary Authors in Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ Roush, Jason (3 September 2011) The Music of Gregory Gray on popsublime. Retrieved 6 June 2019
- ^ Caught in the Act Songtexte – Rosetta Stone on www.songtexte.de. Retrieved 14 June 2019
- ^ a b Guy Pratt. Discography. Gregory Gray. Euroflake in Silverlake on guypratt.com. Retrieved 14 June 2019
- ^ Gregory Gray. The Pope does not smoke dope. YouTube (3:42 min). Retrieved 14 June 2019
- ^ Mary Cigarettes. Nobody really knows. YouTube (5:07 min). Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ Mary Cigarettes. Keep your powder dry. YouTube (4:40 min). Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ Mary Cigarettes. Burning bridges that never really mattered. YouTube (4:00 min). Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Mary Cigarettes on Soundcloud.com. Retrieved 7 June 2019
- ^ McLaughlin, Noel (4 May 2019) "I also had the pleasure of introducing Jimmy Page to the Mary Cigarettes track and video, 'Jimmy Page'. It possessed the wonderful line in the chorus, ‘you’re the one I want to spend my money on, Jimmy Page’. What the revered guitarist made of it, I can't report." Gregory Gray, 1959–2019: Influential Irish Post-punk Pioneer & Gay Icon Passes Away in Front View Magazine. Retrieved 6 June 2019
- ^ Mary Cigarettes. In the land of the harley davidson. YouTube (3:26 min). Retrieved 8 June 2019
- ^ Mary Cigarettes. Middle class white trash ways. YouTube (3:26 min). Retrieved 8 June 2019
External links
edit- BBC Radio 4 Last Word – Gregory Gray Obituary – Radio broadcast on BBC Sounds (7 min)
- Gregory Gray Tribute – Tom Robinson Show (BBC 6, 4 May 2019) – Radio broadcast on Mixcloud (60 min)
- mary cigarettes – Soundcloud.com
- mary cigarettes – YouTube
- mary cigarettes at Wordpress.com