David Wilcox

Canadian guitarist and singer/songwriter David Wilcox started his long and accomplished professional career by landing a spot in the Ian and Sylvia Tyson band the Great Speckled Bird. A few years later, Wilcox stepped into the spotlight in front of his own band, the Teddybears. In 1977, he recorded his first album -- the first of many. During the next two decades, he earned a number of awards and his albums went gold and platinum. David Wilcox was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the summer of 1949. He was only six when he sampled his first Elvis Presley music. The job that Presley had looked fun and exciting to young Wilcox. A year later, he was picking out tunes, or something like tunes, on a guitar. Before he was a teen, he managed to land his first gig. In 1970, when he was 21, Wilcox got a little taste of fame as part of the Great Speckled Bird, a band that performed weekly on television. The show had a nationwide audience, and the band backed numerous big-star acts who appeared as guests. He also recorded with the band. After a few years, Wilcox decided to move on and formed a band called the Teddybears, before trying his luck at performing solo, doing both blues-rock and roots rock at the time. In 1977, he recorded his debut album, Out of the Woods, and released it independently. Once he signed a deal with EMI Music Canada, the full-length album was re-released under the new label and hit the market in 1983. That same year, a sophomore offering arrived, My Eyes Keep Me in Trouble. It was followed a year later by Bad Reputation. Wilcox was building a good reputation, each album going gold. By 1985, EMI/Capitol put together some of his most popular tunes on The Best of David Wilcox. He finished out the '80s with Breakfast at the Circus and Natural Edge. During the last decade before the new millennium, he recorded more albums, including Over 60 Minutes, Thirteen Songs, and two best-of albums, David Wilcox: The Collected Works and Greatest Hits Too. 2001 didn't find Wilcox slowing down his career. In between touring to perform live, he completed a new album, Rhythm of Love. Released through Stony Plain/Warner, the recording carries tunes such as "High Water Rising," "Rhythm of Love," "Easy Like Rain," "Already Got What You Need," and "Play That Guitar Rag." ~ Charlotte Dillon