Saturday 22 February 2020

A Life In Music: Gavin Monaghan a legendary producer

The Wizard in his garden


Gavin Monaghan is a producer who commands massive respect worldwide, but who is just at home working with local bands that he has an affinity with. He loves his work. The people who work with him love his work as well. 

Gavin operates from an unassuming but brilliant studio complex, the third premises that he's named Magic Garden. Music of all shapes and descriptions flows from there out to the world. When I dropped by, Gavin was very calmly allowing his clients to work out and freely deliver something exceptional. It's a brilliant skill. Not all producers have it. 

Among his better-known local clients, you'll find Ocean Colour Scene, Carina Round, Paul Murphy, Editors, Scott Matthews, Robert PlantNizlopi and The Twang. That's one terrific range of talent. Among his newer clients, you'll find Pagans (Shepherds Of Humanity), Paper Buoys, Methods, Cherry LotusThe BlindersHÜDS, and more. 

Above all Gavin focuses on results - it's fascinating to hear how he gets those results, how he got started, and how technology has changed the creative music landscape. Craft skills, hard won and invaluable. 

That patient approach, and the love and nurturing of for new talent from a veteran's perspective chimes with what I want to cover in the Lives in Music series. To listen, you can jump to the podcast site to download and/or stream, or if you like, scroll down to the bottom of this page and stream from the embedded player. 

The story starts, as with many in this series, with a dedicated teacher, when Gavin was very, very young.

Links

Magic Garden facebook page

Lives in Music


The Lives in Music series celebrates people who have spent a lifetime in music. They may be famous; they may be people who have spent their lives working in the background for the love of it. But they all have stories.


Published in Series 2  (series 1 episodes listed here)

1 - Brian Travers of UB40
2 - Ricky Cool
3 - Mark 'Foxy' Robinson of the CBSO
4 - Roy Adams
5 - Gavin Monaghan of Magic Garden studios 
6 - John Mostyn
7 - Stewart Johnson: taking UK Country back across the pond
8 - Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention

9 - Roy Willams (JB's, Little Acre, Weapon of Peace, Robert Plant)

10 - Simon Duggal (Simon & Diamond, Apache Indian, Shania Twain, Desi Beats)

The Podcast



The intro and outro music in this series comes from the great bass player Mike Hatton, who you can hear interviewed in series 1, here. 'Everything Changes' is included in his excellent 2019 album 'Bassic Salvation'.


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