In the early 90's Joseph Arthur was recording home demos, playing local Atlanta clubs and working at Clark Music Store. As luck should have it, Peter Gabriel's A&R associate Harvey Schwartz was presenting him some new artists at his apartment in New York City. Once Gabriel heard the lyrics to "History" he repeated the line "your history is your gravity" over and over realizing the talented songwriter was a great fit for his label Real World. Both he and Schwartz arranged a live audition at the Fez in NYC, where Arthur flew up from Atlanta. The night was clearly a success as Gabriel had enlisted friend Lou Reed to record the show. Within a few months Arthur was signed and Big City Secrets was recorded at his Real World Studios with Marcus Dravs (expermental Bjork engineer) producing the album. Two years later, he recorded an EP called Vacancy, which earned him a Grammy nomination for the artistic packaging.
His song "In the Sun" was recently covered by Michael Stipe (of R.E.M.) and Coldplay singer Chris Martin for a Hurricane Katrina Relief program. The EP includes 6 versions of the cover, one of which has Arthur himself singing with Stipe. It was also covered by Peter Gabriel himself for the Diana and Dodi Tribute CD.
On March 26, 2007, there will be a special single release for the 2002 song "Honey And The Moon" in the UK only. The single is in anticipation for the UK release of his albums Nuclear Daydream and Let's Just Be.
[Source: Wikipedia. See his Joseph Arthur article for more information]
1997: Big City Secrets
2000: Come to Where I'm From
2002: Redemption's Son
2005: Our Shadows Will Remain
2006: The Invisible Parade + We Almost Made It
2006: Nuclear Daydream
2007: Let's Just Be
http://www.josepharthur.com/
