Beth Gibbons (born 4 January 1965) is an English singer and songwriter. She is the singer and lyricist for the band Portishead, who have released three albums. She released an album with Rustin Man, Out of Season, in 2002, followed by an album with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2019.

Beth Gibbons
Gibbons at Roskilde Festival 2011
Background information
Born	(1965-01-04) 4 January 1965 (age 57) Exeter, Devon, England[1]
Genres	Trip hop, folk,[2] alternative rock, baroque pop, dance pop, experimental pop
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar, keyboards
Years active	1991–present
Labels	Go! Beat, Sanctuary
Member of	Portishead
Website	bethgibbons.net

Early life

Gibbons was born in Exeter, Devon, England[3][1] and raised on a farm with three sisters. Her parents divorced when she was young.[4] At 22, she moved to Bath, then Bristol to pursue her singing career, where she met Geoff Barrow, her future collaborator in Portishead.[5]

Career

With Adrian Utley, Gibbons and Barrow released the first Portishead album Dummy in 1994 and have produced two other studio albums, a live album, and various singles in the years since.

She has also collaborated on a separate project with former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (Rustin Man). Before she joined Geoff Barrow in Portishead, she had auditioned for the singer's slot in .O.rang, the group formed by Webb after Talk Talk's late-Eighties departure from EMI, but Portishead's sudden success pre-empted matters. In October 2002, they released the album Out of Season in the United Kingdom under the name Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man. The album peaked at number 28 in the UK Albums Chart.[6] It was released in the United States a year later: while touring in North America, Variety favourably described her performance with Rustin as "Billie Holiday fronting Siouxsie and the Banshees".[7]

Gibbons was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.

In June 2013, Gibbons announced plans for a new solo album with Domino Records.[8][9] She contributed vocals to a cover of the song "Black Sabbath" with the British metal band Gonga, released on 24 April 2014.[10]

In 2018, Gibbons contributed vocal performances, along with Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, to the Spill Festival held in Ipswich in an audio installation entitled 'Clarion Calls', which uses the voices of 100 women to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.[11]

In 2014, Gibbons performed Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Górecki with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki. Gibbons sang in Polish. The performance was released in 2019; reviewing the album for Pitchfork, Jayson Greene wrote: "Part of the tension comes from hearing her untrained voice scale these rocky heights. Her vibrato, tight and trilling and barely controlled, sounds an awful lot like someone fighting off a panic attack. This would get her dismissed from a traditional opera audition, probably, but it is magnificently effective at sending raw shudders through what can be a pretty well-worn work."[12] In 2022, Gibbons featured on the track "Mother I Sober" from Kendrick Lamar's album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.[13][14]

Style and inspiration

She has cited Nina Simone, Bono of U2 for his performance on The Joshua Tree, Otis Redding and Jimmy Cliff as a musical inspiration.[4][15] She has named Janis Joplin,[16] Edith Piaf,^{[citation needed]} Janis Ian[16] and Elizabeth Fraser.^{[citation needed]}

Discography

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: Non-use of wikitable(s), laundry list appearance, lack of references. (November 2018)

Portishead

• Dummy (1994)
• Portishead (1997)
• Roseland NYC Live (1998)
• Third (2008)

Solo

• Out of Season (2002) with Rustin Man
• Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) (2019) with Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra[17]

Other works

• "Orang" on .O.rang's album Herd of Instinct (1994)
• "Jalap" on .O.rang's album Fields and Waves (1996)
• "Lonely Carousel" on Rodrigo Leão's album Cinema (2004)
• "Strange Melody" on Jane Birkin's album Rendez-Vous (2004)
• "Killing Time" on Joss Stone's Mind Body & Soul (2004)
• "Love is a Stranger" on Fried's album Fried (2004)
• "Mysteries" with Rustin Man from "The Russian Dolls" soundtrack (2005)
• Soundtrack for Diane Bertrand's film "L'Annulaire" (unreleased, 2005)
• "My Secret" on Jane Birkin's album Fictions (2006)
• "Requiem for Anna" on Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited - performed as Portishead (2006)
• "Sing" with Annie Lennox from Songs of Mass Destruction (2007)
• Soundtrack for Diane Bertrand's film Baby Blues (2008)
• Soundtrack for Julie Taymor's film "The Tempest" - "Prospera's Coda" by Elliot Goldenthal (2010)
• "GMO" on JJ Doom's Key to the Kuffs (2012)
• "Black Sabbeth" with Gonga[18] (2014)
• Mandela Effect with Gonjasufi (2017)[19]
• "Mother I Sober" with Kendrick Lamar (2022)[13][14]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beth Gibbons.

• Beth Gibbons website
• Beth Gibbons at IMDb
• Portishead band website
• Guardian: Portishead (02/2008)

На других языках

[de] Beth Gibbons

[es] Beth Gibbons

[ru] Гиббонс, Бет