Keith Christmas

Keith Peter Christmas (born 13 October 1946 in Wivenhoe, near Colchester, Essex, England) is an English singer and songwriter. He attended Bath University to read architecture but, because the Architecture School was, at that time, based in Kingsweston House, Bristol, he became part of that city's folk set.

In 1969, his first album, Stimulus, was released on RCA Victor via a production deal with Sandy Roberton's September Productions, to whom Christmas was signed. Through the 1970s he released albums on B&C and Manticore, while touring with and supporting bands such as The Who, King Crimson, Ten Years After, Frank Zappa, Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart and The Kinks. In 1971, he released Pigmy, which included one side of acoustic songs, and one side of band pieces, which have a very free, jamming feel to the instrumental sections. The choral and string parts were arranged by Robert Kirby, better known for his arrangements for Nick Drake. The 2004 retrospective album, Timeless and Strange, was named after a track on Pigmy, which featured, then Bristol-based artist, Bob Stewart on psaltery.

In 1972, he was voted one of six favourite international artists by writers of Sounds magazine. The irony was that he was effectively unsigned at this point because his record label, B&C, had recently ceased trading. He was signed by the recently formed Manticore label, which was set up by Emerson, Lake & Palmer and their manager, Stewart Young, for whom he recorded Brighter Day and Stories from the Human Zoo. He also sang on Danse Macabre, by Esperanto, in 1974, the connection being that the LP was produced by Manticore artist/producer, Pete Sinfield. A further Pete Sinfield connection is that Christmas wrote the lyrics for the English language release of Angelo Branduardi's Life Is the Only Teacher in 1979 - Sinfield had written the lyrics for Branduardi's previous English language release, Highdown Fair.

In 1976, after recording Stories from the Human Zoo with Donald 'Duck' Dunn and Steve Cropper from Booker T. & the MGs, at Indigo Ranch Studios, in America, he came back to England and, with Manticore becoming inactive for new releases, after a few years he stopped playing. In 1983, his composition, "Fable of the Wings", was covered by 'folk-rock' supergroup, Brass Monkey, which featured Martin Carthy and John Kirkpatrick.

In the late 1980s, he moved back to Bristol and began playing solo acoustic sets, The Bowie Bandstand was given Grade II listed status on 16 August 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the original Growth Summer Festival.

His latest album, Life, Life, was released on 1 September 2019.

Discography Stimulus 1969