Apparently Gavin Degraw has been the best kept secret for a while, well, at least from me. I was always aware of Gavin Degraw and his career, he has had some good singles, but had been kind of background music for me. He performed songs that I liked, but never really paid attention beyond hearing it on the radio, until now. I always liked his songs “Chariot”, and “In Love with a Girl”, but he totally hooked me with his new track “Sweeter”(watch the video at the bottom). His sound is the perfect blend of bluesy rock and roll with just the right amount of grit to make you feel it. One of the best new singles ive heard this year.
DeGraw rose to fame in 2003 when “I Don’t Want to Be” was chosen as the theme song for teen drama One Tree Hill. I never really listened much to this song, mostly because of its attachment to a “teen drama”, it held a stigma for me as way too popular, and was too teen-angsty for me. Sadly, I was wrong, this is actually a great song. The song is from his début album, Chariot released in 2003. Chariot sold over a million copies and went platinum. This album also featured two other singles: “Follow Through” and “Chariot”, this started his trend of having great title tracks from his albums. He then went on to release an acoustic version of the album called Chariot Stripped in 2004. Chariot Stripped has a cover version of Sam Cooke‘s “A Change Is Gonna Come”.
DeGraw’s second album, Gavin DeGraw was released in May of 2008. It featured the singles, “In Love with a Girl” and “Cheated On Me”. This was followed by the Live From Soho album, released Nov 2008, featuring mostly tracks from Gavin
DeGraw. His third album, Free hit the air in 2009. DeGraw included some songs on the album that he wrote very early in his career and that have evolved over time. The début single from the album, “Stay”, came out in March of 2009. Free is described as “recorded versions of his live favourites”.
DeGraw’s fourth, and most recent album, Sweeter dropped in September of 2011. I am a huge fan of this album, and I love the title track on this album. The first single “Not Over You” was released on iTunes in June, it was co-written and produced by Ryan Tedder. Sweeter contains collaborations from producers including Butch Walker, Eric Rosse, and Ron Aniello; alongside another co-written title track, “Sweeter” with Andrew Frampton. DeGraw again released an accompanying album based on songs from Sweeter. The iTunes Session album features seven tracks and a 30 minute interview.
I admit I have overlooked Gavin Degraw for some time, but no longer, you should check him out too because his sound and style is now obviously swell.
(Images courtesy of IMDB.com and Gavindegraw.com)
Related articles
- Gavin DeGraw Returns To Dancing With The Stars (fresh1027.radio.com)
- Gavin DeGraw: ‘Sweeter’ Video Premiere! (justjared.com)
- Gavin DeGraw Never Leaves His Fedora At Home (wdok.radio.com)
How to be Swell 
Love his music….
Me too!