6 reasons we love Guy Garvey
2017 marks Guy Garvey's 10th anniversary as a 6 Music presenter. It's been a busy year for him so far, with his 6 Music show, a new Elbow album and tour, plus a TV cameo alongside Peter Kay. Guy also presented his show from 6 Music's Manchester International Festival - catch-up here.
To celebrate we thought we'd round up just six of the many reasons why we love Guy. It will probably make him a bit embarrassed, but we hope he might forgive us.
1. His Finest Hour
Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour has been beloved of 6 Music listeners for a decade now. Having moved from a 10pm bedtime slot in 2013, it’s now as essential a part of cosy Sunday afternoons as roast dinners and the papers.
Guy often picks a theme – from drums to thunder – carefully choosing related tracks. Listeners can expect to hear anything from Fleet Foxes to Bill Withers, and the mysterious Beckapedia is always on hand to dazzle us with the depths of her musical knowledge.
Guy has taken the show on voyages to the Manchester Central Library, where Radiohead’s Philip Selway and New Order’s Stephen Morris both came along for the ride, and to New York when he decamped for a while back in 2013.
A chance Big Apple encounter with Dan Hesman, who stopped Guy in the street and asked if he was indeed him, sparked a chain of intimate and fascinating interviews about life in America.
"All parties we ever had ended in dancing" - Errol plays Guy the soundtrack to his mother's American immigrant experience
Guy Garvey revisits his trip to New York to celebrate 10 years of his Finest Hour show.
The late, magisterial astronomer Sir Patrick Moore was the source of some of the show’s most popular audio interjections. He recorded a previously unheard special series of space-related song lyrics - spoken aloud in that unmistakable timbre. Truly cosmic.
Hear the late great Patrick Moore reading lyrics from space related songs
The greatly missed astronomer takes a dip into the world of music.
Following the Manchester Arena bombing in May this year, Guy's emotional reaction to the attack on his home city resonated with many. He paid further tribute to the victims with a special Love Letter to Manchester programme on 6 Music the following Sunday, featuring a selection of the city's finest musical talents.
2. His band
Guy Garvey met the other members of Elbow at Bury College sixth form and they have been playing together since 1990. Often cited as the archetypal slow-burning success story, they didn't release their first album until 2001. Their seventh album, Little Fictions, was released earlier this year.
Despite critical acclaim and a fiercely loyal fanbase, the foursome existed as a fairly under the radar act until the explosive success of 2008 album The Seldom Seen Kid and its euphoric lead single One Day Like This. That LP won the Mercury Prize, and by the following year Elbow were headlining Wembley Arena.
The band are famous for tracks which take their audience on a journey of shifting dynamics and swooping emotions - with Garvey's inimitable lyrics nailing the potential poignancy of everyday, downbeat life as much as the big pictures stuff.
At Glastonbury 2014, foul weather and a pesky fork of lightning led to a notorious interlude in which the festival's power went down. For a while it looked like Elbow might not get to play at all - but they made it onstage for a triumphant set, complete with the obligatory Glasto rainbow.
Not ones to be put off, the band returned to Glastonbury in 2017 for a surprise Park Stage set on Friday evening, featuring many of their classic anthems.
Beyond Elbow, Guy has released 2015 solo album Courting The Squall, and produced fellow Mancunian band I Am Kloot.
Elbow - One Day Like This
Elbow perform One Day Like This at Glastonbury 2017
3. His Car Share cameos
Trailer: Peter Kay's Car Share Series 2 Episode 2
This week John and Kayleigh travel to work in unusual style.
He hadn't acted since the days of school plays, but when comedian Peter Kay rang Guy up (as you do) to ask if he would appear in his sitcom Car Share, Guy thought he would take the chance.
The show, about two supermarket colleagues participating in a car share scheme, was filmed in and around his hometown of Manchester. Guy appeared as the mechanic Steve in three episodes of the funny but touching programme's second and final series.
Peter Kay on casting Guy Garvey in Car Share: "He said he hadn't acted since being in a school play."
Peter chats about Car Share and his Dance For Life dance-a-thons for charity.
4. A Song for Guy
As well as introducing his audience to songs he thinks they’ll love, Guy encourages them to return the favour.
A Song For Guy is a much-loved section of his show in which his listeners recommend him a song, a segment which has built into a BBC Music Playlist featuring acts from Foy Vance to The Beach Boys.
5. He soundtracked one of our most memorable summers
Elbow were chosen by the BBC to record their theme to the 2012 London Olympic Games, and created something suitably epic and eye-moistening with the track First Steps, featuring the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and NovaVox Gospel Choir. All profits from the song went to Children in Need and Sports Relief.
Elbow also performed their tracks One Day Like This and Open Arms at the Olympics Closing Ceremony – and soon after saw their sales shoot up by 1000 per cent.
Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour can be heard on BBC Radio 6 Music, Sundays, 2-4pm, and for the following 30 days on the 6 Music website and the iPlayer Radio app.
6. He's already entertaining the next generation
Joining the ranks of Hollywood stars Tom Hardy and Chris Evans, Guy has read a variety of tales aloud for CBeebies series Bedtime Stories.
His voice, gruff but lilting and as cockle-warming as a wooly jumper, is the perfect fit. His rendition of Ed Vere's Mr. Big, a tale about the need to look beyond a person's exterior to find the real person within, is worth watching however old you are.
