Grant Gilbert performing at the Nutty Brown Amphitheatre in Austin, Texas on April 3, 2021, with Grant Gilbert, Dylan Price, Morgan Baker, Dakota Merida, and Gunner Driver. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)
Grant Gilbert has a quintessential Texas attitude, work hard, think big, don’t let anyone fence the music in. He is a young, hustling front man for a five-piece band, an ensemble that embodies the spirit of the Lubbock musicians who’ve preceded it. Like Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Josh Abbott Band and Dixie Chicks, Gilbert is ostensibly country, but really so much more. Classic rock, the blues, Southern rock, and country, are all ingrained in an energetic, powerful package that’s become a major part of the club circuit.Grant Gilbert shared the stage with Josh Abbott Band at the Nutty Brown Amphitheatre. The band continues across the United States with the last stop at the John T. Floore Country Store in Helotes, Texas on June 4, 2021.
That spirit is evident in Gilbert’s Debut EP Loud & Clear, an intense musical workout that mirrors his band’s college-town beginnings. “Held On To” features Gilbert’s scrappy vocals atop power chords in a track awash with mystery. “Denying Desires” houses a tortured, pleading storyline within a smoky ‘80s power-pop groove. And “Hub City Shakedown” cradles a snarling, fuzzy guitar solo inside a blues/rock setting with all the passion of the late Glenn Frey’s “Smuggler’s Blues.”
Gilbert and his crew, guitarists Dylan Price and Morgan Baker, bass player Dakota Merida and drummer Gunner Driver, have made a mark with public audiences and inside the music business, too. Josh Abbott, whose own band has racked up a series of Top 10 country albums in Billboard, signed up to manage Gilbert in tandem with Triple 8 Management, a firm that already represents such disparate acts as Texas-bred country/rock group Eli Young Band, mainstream-country singer Scotty McCreery and Iceland indie rockers KALEO. William Morris Endeavor added Gilbert to its concert-booking roster.
Grant Gilbert
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Photos by Ralph Arvesen
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