Adrian Eccleston

If you’ve not seen Adrian live, perhaps (good) live music is not your thing. Choose any venue that rocks on a regular basis and chances are Adrian has had something to do with it. From playing international festivals and touring with big-ticket artists to jamming in small, crowded bars, playing live is an integral part of Adrian’s success. His stage presence, creative vibe and swift capacity for picking up new music has made him one of the most sought after live guitarists for local and international artists. In recent years he’s toured with such talents as Ursula Rucker, Amanda Marshal, Esthero, Divine Brown, Jacksoul, Jarvis Church, Snow and most recently Nelly Furtado, whose ’07 tour took Adrian through sold-out arenas all over Canada and Europe. In 2004 Adrian experienced a sold out show at the Glastonbury music festival with over 100,000 people in attendance. Other professional highlights include opening for Prince and Bryan Adams, performing for the likes of Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Edson “Pelé” Arantes do Nascimento and former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and playing with Grammy award-winner Randy Crawford in Harare, Zimbabwe.Prime Time TV saw Adrian on Fox’s hit reality series The Casino, as well as on Canadian Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Ellen, Tyra Banks Show, Late Show with David Letterman, multiple episodes of Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show, One Life to Live and the ’06 finale of Saturday Night Live.Adrian has been featured in and performed at various award shows, including the Canadian Juno Awards, the American Music Awards, the World Music Awards and MTV award shows around the world. Most recently he can be seen on Nelly Furtado’s ’07 Live CD and DVD release ‘Loose: The Concert’, filmed and recorded at a sold-out show at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.With equal commitment to the craft, Adrian is a formidable producer and songwriter. His studio work, which began in ’99, has earned him two prestigious Juno awards; for the musical group In Essence in 2003 and for Jacksoul in 2000. Adrian is well versed in classical, progressive and popular music, with Rock, Jazz, R&B, Reggae, Hip Hop, Soul and Blues remaining his fortes. His Influences range from an assortment of greats such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Called Quest and Prince,As a session musician, Adrian has recorded guitar hooks for countless songs played on a variety of stations worldwide. Titles include “Crazy”, “Promiscuous” and “Maneater”, Nelly Furtado, ‘Loose’; “Thank Heaven For You”, Esthero, ‘Wicked Little Girls’; “Shady Day” and “The River”, Jacksoul, ‘Resurrected’; “Just Let Me”, “Best Thing” and “Luv Song”, Melanie Durrant, ‘Where I’m Going’; “I.E. Melody”, In Essence, ‘The Master Plan’; “Stand Tall”, Syreeta Neal, ‘Stand Tall’; “Call You Out”, “Now You Know”, and “Got What I Want”, Kayte Burgess, ‘Checked Baggage’; and single “Crazy Feeling”, Snow, ‘Mind On The Moon’.Under Adrian’s own production company Ecclectic Electrix (www.musicisageless.com) he produced his first full-length independent CD for singer/songwriter Syreeta Neal (www.myspace.com/syreetaneal) and has produced and written on Lori Nuic’s ‘The Red Book Chronicles’ (www.lorinuic.com), Kyprios’s ‘Say Something’ (www.kyprios.com), and Kayte Burgess’s, “Checked Baggage”, (www.kayteburgess.com) . In ‘05 Adrian worked as the musical director for Canadian R&B sensation, Divine Brown. Now you can sample a taste of his keen production skills on the upcoming albums by Chin Injeti (www.chininjeti.com), Kyprios (www.kyprios.com) and Marla Joy (www.myspace.com/marlajoymusic).Anyone who knows Adrian well can confirm he’s nursed a mean guitar habit since childhood. Growing up in an upstanding Jamaican family he proved his unwavering commitment to music by doing as he was told – sporting a side part, giving up his favourite stretched-out trackpants, playing in the church band and swearing off dreadlocks while under the family roof. Majoring in music, he finished the Claude Watson program for the Arts at Earl Haig Secondary School, and continued his studies as a jazz performer at the University of Toronto.Today, to nobody’s surprise, Adrian is a proficient and versatile performer, writer and producer of music. His work in the industry has earned him generous support from brands such as Gibson, Dean Markley and recognition from the amplifier makers Mesa Boogie, on whose site he is one of the flagship artists. When off stage and out of the studio, Toronto-based Adrian teaches private guitar lessons and continues his work on various solo projects.words by Elana Safronsky
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