Kris Gray and Tim Wyatt are a duo of guitarist-singer-songwriters with a humorous and original interpretation of the vicissitudes and absurdities of modern life.

They were born within a month of each other at the tail end of the post-World War II baby boom.

Their music explores the harsh joy and soft anguish of surviving the second half of the 20th Century and continuing to eke out an existence in the new millennium of austerity and conflict.

With a repertoire not confined to a single musical genre with influences drawn from Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, Tom Waits and Randy Newman.

Kris Gray:

During the seventies Kris formed two bands, 'Elastic Cat' and 'Hard Road', the one having made two fine albums, however the second never saw a release due to the demise of the record company.

He then moved on to writing music for a BBC TV series called ‘After Four’ and the title music was recorded with a star studded line up that included Peter Green and Peter Bardens. Kris also wrote and recorded a single by Joanne Campbell that also featured the two Peters. During the eighties he was forced off the road duo to family commitments and just did some session work including working with the Herb Miller Band (yes Glenn’s Brother).

In the early nineties, he turned to managing and over the next decade handled amongst others such as Chris Farlowe, Cliff Bennett, Maggie Bell, Ian Hunter, The Sweet and The Edgar Broughton Band whom he eventually joined as the bass player. After managing Chris Farlowe for 18 years and producing a number of albums by him, Kris produced and played bass on his most recent album ‘Hotel Eingang’, featuring Miller Anderson (ex Keef Hartley Band), Savoy Brown, Mountain and Spencer Davis was the guitarist on the session. He asked Kris to produce his next album, having produced his 2003 album ‘Bluesheart’. The result was ‘Chameleon’, the band also featured 10cc drummer Paul Burgess and for the next four years toured constantly and recording a live double CD ‘From Lizard Rock’

After the band split Kris joined Jay Tamkin whose two albums had been produced by him, ‘Sorted’ and ‘Alibi’ and toured throughout 2012 with Jay. This then leads onto the current project, Gray and Wyatt featuring all original material written by Kris and Tim both separately and together.


Tim Wyatt:

Tim Wyatt has been writing songs since he was a teenager and performed regularly throughout the 1960s and 70s until journalism took over.

He has worked as a TV, newspaper and radio reporter and presenter, and is an award-winning playwright and documentary filmmaker. He is a publisher, poet and the author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction.

He leads a reclusive and perilous existence in the Yorkshire Pennines, surviving at the end of the journalistic food chain and continuing to develop projects.

THE INTRIGUING BACK STORY

The story begins somewhere in the fervid cultural turmoil of 1971 when things were still possible but the potential was rapidly narrowing. Tim Wyatt had just fled Yorkshire for London where he was working as an 18 year old publicity assistant at Gordon & Breach Science Publishers. There he meets Moira Mills, who is engaged to musician and recent Borstal Boy Kris Gray, a man with both talent and musical ambitions.

Kris writes two songs to commemorate the forthcoming Windsor Festival organised by acid evangelist and deep eccentric Bill Dwyer. Early one morning sometime in 1973; Kris Gray (bass), Cecil Roberts (guitar), Mick Duffy (drums?), Moira and Tim book two hours in TW Studios in Fulham to record 'I Am ... I Think' and The Man From Naz. A small number are pressed and put out on the newly created Sunslump Records (number gra 101a). It is one of the very first independent recordings of its kind ever released in the UK.

Moira and Tim sing on the backing vocals. Tim, who has also designed the logo and the record label, attempts crude publicity work using a six-foot replica of the record produced from hardboard. He spends time rolling the giant model around various parts of central London to almost complete disinterest.

Soon afterwards comes a parting of the ways with marriages, careers, and that usual range of triumphs and disasters most people experience. All links between Kris and Tim vanish until nearly forty years later - oddly revived by a chance remark late in 2011.

Facing continuing adversity in his life-long career as freelance writer and journalist, Tim is looking at ways of turning some of his vast hoard of memorabilia into cash. One day his friend, vinyl guru Nog Langan, comes over to Tim’s place to choose some potential rarities from his collection, armed with his thick record collector’s bible. As Nog is leaving, Tim obliquely mentions the fact that he was once involved in a record but doesn’t imagine it’s listed in the book...

...But it is! And it’s very collectable too, fetching good prices from online aficionados. Unknown to each other Tim and Kris are both contacted by the editor of Record Collector magazine. A few days later the phone goes on Tim’s desk. “It’s Kris Gray,” says a voice on the other end. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

A few days later Tim flies from Yorkshire over to Kris’s home in South West Germany where the pair finally meet again after four decades. Over the next year they get together regularly, writing songs, rehearsing and planning.

Between 25th and 28th February 2013 together with ace sound engineer Daniel Schindler Kris produces Wyatt + Gray in a studio just outside Fulda in central Germany. The result is the 13-track Naming The Darkness album due for release worldwide by MIG records in Germany.
It marks the start of a new and very unexpected chapter in both men’s lives.

READ GERMAN VERSION - CLICK HERE