AARON GILMARTIN is a singer-songwriter and guitarist of uncommon passion, commitment, and integrity. With a background full of influences ranging from Brazil and flamenco to rock and blues, he combines virtuosic, intricate guitar work with a straightforward, honest, heartfelt vocal style. Aaron writes accessible and appealing pop-folk tunes and delivers them in a voice of gentle strength and powerful conviction.
Born in Washington DC to a Texan family of artists and musicians, as a child, Aaron was exposed to the broad breadth of American musics: traditional Irish ballads, civil war songs, folk songs of social conscience, show-tunes, instrumental and vocal jazz, and spirituals. He began playing recorder at the age of 6, took up the clarinet at 9, played his first string instrument -the banjo- at 10, and started playing guitar at 12. At around the same time, he fell in love with the Beatles (although the first strains of the White Album scared him the first time he listened to it) and began to immerse himself in popular music. As a teenager Aaron opened himself with enthusiasm to a wide range of influences and styles: straight-up rock-and-roll (the Stones and the Who), psychedelia (Pink Floyd, Yes, ELP), punk (Ramones, Clash, Replacements) pure pop (B-52s, Prince, and the Police), reggae (Marley, Cliff, the Police) and classic singer-songwriters (Dylan, Carole King, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, and Paul Simon). His guitar heroes include Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Robert Fripp, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian, Pat Martino, Pat Metheney, John Scofield, and Muddy Waters.
Aaron attended Waldorf schools throughout much of his childhood, and the development of his distinctive artistic sensibility, with its emphasis on purity, beauty, and authenticity, owes much to this early education. He went on to receive formal musical training at a DC-area performing arts high school, where he studied classical and jazz guitar, and later at both Berkelee College of Music and California State University at Hayward, where he received a degree in classical guitar performance. Traveling to and living in San Miguel de Allende Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba, and studying under many master teachers, Aaron honed the skills that gave him his first career as a musician, performing Brazilian, flamenco, Latin, jazz, and Cuban music in San Francisco and New York City as both a guitarist and vocalist. For more information on this aspect of Aaron's career, go to www.myspace/flamencoaaron ... As a culmination of this phase of his career, Aaron recorded two instructional DVDS on flamenco guitar for Homespun Tapes.
These DVDs were produced and directed by Woodstock legend Happy Traum.
In the spring of 2001, Aaron joined the singer Dorothy Potter's band Azujela as lead guitarist and vocalist. Over the next three years, Dorothy and Aaron performed classic Cuban son and Brazilian favorites in Spanish and Portuguese in many NYC venues, and composed and recorded songs together for Songs of Love, an organization that creates personalized songs for severely ill children. From 2004 until the spring of 2007, as half of the GilmartinPotter Band, Aaron played all over Europe and Scandinavia, singing in Irish pubs, cafes, and clubs, on cruise ships and military bases. The GilmartinPotter Band released their debut CD, Just Before Rising, in April 2007 and then embarked on a successful cross-country tour of the United States. Now a solo performer based in New York City, Aaron is at work on a new album. In February 2008 he gave the first in a series of song-writing workshops in the San Bruno County jail (San Francisco) under the auspices of Sunny Schwartz's RSVP (Resolve to Stop the Violence) program of restorative justice. In April 2008 Aaron began consulting with acclaimed composer and songwriter Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party) on the broadway-bound musical version of the Addam's Family. A new instructional DVD focusing on Brazilian music is scheduled for taping this spring.
hey aaron, thanks for nice words; so glad you like it. more songs from a living room at www. maybemusic. net if you will - keep "rising" with you music... maybe me
Hey there Aaron, thank you so much for the compliment. I am glad your enjoyed the music. Also, I am really feeling your music. I really like the song "Long Distance Runner". Maybe we'll play a show in NY together. Hope you have a great weekend :-) -Naeemah
i was feeling playful and threw out an odd mix....like everyone else does. glad you enjoyed. my network is working this morning and last night. how refreshing it is!! i need to get a mac. i believe they get better reception/more wireless power....good for around these parts.
how is you? have you moved in with priscilla? listened to your music while going to sleep last night. it was nice. heart love music.
YES come to Dallas :-))) It would be totally fun if you brought music my way :-) Let me think about how we should do it though.
Let's just pick up and move to Cali, no plan, no agenda.. there were TONS of homeless people on the streets of Santa Barbara, we could be one of them right?
ha both highly educated, ambitious people - that would be a laugh.
praise Him for the undying sunshine He brings to our lives.
we now resume our program, already in progress.... oh and btw, the guy from morocco was calling from casablanca and said that the festival over there was the one to be at.
I spent a week in south Cali, and my heart definitely stayed there.. hoping to uproot sometime in this life :-) but we both know He leads... so that's that
thanks for the pictures aaron. how fun to see texas family....and you...TOGETHER!! glad you made it out. i wonder when my day will come? it's going on years now!! i esp liked the one of you and may...mary...and so beautiful of pricsella and darlin' boys!! so you're moving in together, is that what i understand? congrats papa sorta! it'll be growth enhancing!
sending love your way to all you see and touch...spread it around!!
guth just put new pics up of riley and soma just opened a my space if he decides to give it attention. the papas are busy being papas.
Hi there lover boy...how's life treating you. What are ya up to these days? I'm busy, too busy...but life's good right now. Miss you. Take care and... I'll be back !!!