Keith Christmas

Keith Christmas (born Keith Peter Christmas, 13 October 1946, Wivenhoe, near Colchester, Essex[1]) is an English singer and songwriter. In 1969 his first album Stimulus was released. Christmas played acoustic guitar on David Bowie's Space Oddity album, and appeared at the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970.

Keith Christmas
Christmas in 2010.
Background information
Birth name	Keith Peter Christmas
Born	(1946-10-13) 13 October 1946
Origin	Wivenhoe, Essex
Genres	Folk rock
Years active	late 1960s - present
Labels	RCA Victor, B & C Records, Manticore Records, Woronzow Records, Voiceprint, HTD Records, , BECN Records
Associated acts	Mighty Baby David Bowie
Website	www.keithchristmas.com

Through the 1970s he released four more albums, Fable Of The Wings, Pigmy, Brighter Day and Stories From The Human Zoo, while touring with and supporting bands like The Who, King Crimson, Ten Years After, Frank Zappa, Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart and The Kinks.[2]

Among the musicians who contributed to his recordings were Mighty Baby, Pat Donaldson, Keith Tippett, Gerry Conway, Shelagh McDonald, Rod Argent, Peter Sinfield, Greg Lake, Mel Collins, Cat Stevens and Michael Boshears.[2]

In 1972 he was voted one of six favourite international artists by writers of Sounds magazine.[2]

In 1976 he came back to England and after a few years stopped playing. He formed the blues band 'Weatherman' in 1991 with some friends and an album of the same name was released in 1992. In 1996 he suddenly started to write a different kind of acoustic material which almost immediately led to the release of a new album 'Love Beyond Deals' on HTD Records.

In January 2003 Christmas released an instrumental CD, ‘Acoustica’. It got excellent worldwide reviews - ‘absolutely brilliant’, ‘this is a quite exceptional piece of work’, ‘lavish and overwhelming’, ‘a beautiful album’, and the opening track was used on the BBC documentary 'Hidden Gardens'.

In 2006 he recorded and produced his first ever solo CD called 'Light of the Dawn'. The magazine fRoots reviewed it “…the sound is fantastic and grabs the attention: the confident, gutsy guitar, picked or slide, has immediacy and intimacy in equal measure; and Christmas's urgent, hoarse vocals can't help but involve the listener in the moods and stories of the songs…a fine timeless album”.

In 2011 Christmas released a 5-track solo acoustic EP called 'Fat Cat Big Fish' and in 2012 released his first live CD 'Live at the Pump'.

In December 2016 Christmas released a new CD, ‘Crazy Dancing Days’. From summer 2015, when he started writing the album, to just before its release, early versions of 8 songs that were posted on YouTube, SoundCloud and Fandalism have been played over 47,000 times, 14,000 of them the track ‘Cross the Water’ - an appeal for tolerance to refugees,

Keith has also played at a fundraising festival, Bowie's Beckenham Oddity in Beckenham to help raise funds for the Bowie Bandstand. The same said bandstand that Keith performed on in 1969(16th august) as part of the Growth Summer Festival and Free Concert (which was co organised by a young curly haired chap that went under the name of David Bowie). Keith performed at the 2017 and 2019 festival, he will also be performing there again in August 2020.

The Bowie Bandstand was given Grade 2 listed status on August 16, 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the original Growth Summer Festival, in fact Keith was the very first person to perform on the bandstand the day of its listing.

His new album, 'Life, Life' was released on September 1, 2019.