Greg McGarvey is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and visual artist from the Delaware Valley. His debut album, Count The Colors, was released on August 21, 2020.
"I've been writing songs since I was twenty-four, but I always held them back because I felt I was still discovering my voice, still unsure I really had anything to say.
When my girlfriend Marcella passed on, I realized it was finally time to get to work in a more serious way. I wanted to write music that could preserve some of my memories of her, capture a little bit of her spirit, and I didn't want to let go of it until I thought it was really worthy of her.
The reaction from fans old and new has been very gratifying."
When writing and recording this material, Greg took inspiration from the emotional honesty of The Everly Brothers' classic Songs Our Daddy Taught Us and Patti Smith's Gone Again.
A blend of country-rock travelogues and emotional ballads, Count The Colors features some of the Delaware Valley’s best musicians. Andy Keenan (Amos Lee) on pedal steel guitar, Joe Falcey on drums, Kyle Perella (Levee Drivers) on lap steel guitar, Nick Crocker on acoustic guitar, Frank Burk (Philly folk scene) on fiddle, and Mike Kiker (St. James & The Apostles) on piano.
Six years in the making, Count The Colors is a labor of love made possible by the generous support of Greg's fans. Part of its proceeds will support Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, an organization for which Marcella has posthumously raised over $50,000.
"Greg unconvers that little glimmer of something beautiful, hidden beneath the grey snow of loss. A bud of promise sewn in memory.
It reminds me of the people who have swept through my life and passed through me, leaving strands of their own being twined through mine forever. Which is a precious mystery hinting at our oneness.
How something brief and beautiful that grabs our inner longing becomes an incomprehensible truth that makes you cry and laugh in wonder when it's gone.
How people change you, and how one person can leave such an impact on another that even when they are gone from this world, they live; in more than memories, but as part of your being itself.
I've always felt that I carry all those I've ever loved with me. I don't get over people. I carry them with me and never let them go. They become songs and memories and drawings, emerge in dreams and become legend that transforms my heart and being through space and time.
Thanks Greg McGarvey for this expression of beauty."
- Mattie Crawford, 2020
"He is a troubadour from another era.
This album has been worked on for a long while. It has been full of ups downs, lefts, rights, pauses and whirlpools of emotional tumult.
The album also contains all of that and more!
No doubt a cathartic piece of art for Greg, but perhaps for anyone who could use to listen to, or feel ‘you-can-get-through-it vibes’.
Count The Colors is a celebration of life and its comet hailing curveballs. It tells the story of a young artist, friend, and partner who exhibited grace and strength during what anyone else would consider a hellstorm.
It is, in its essence, an exhibition and exercise in love and accentuating the positive even when you are scared and breaking.
Talk is cheap.
Actions speak louder than words.
And Greg McGarvey uses every word and experience he has had to curate and create art. Period.
When it’s so easy to be wrecked, by so many things, Greg McGarvey takes it all, focuses, and rewraps the gifts of life and loss so that he - and we - can breathe deeper to write another a day.
Tennyson wrote, "I am a part of all that I have met..."
...now meet Greg and Marcella."
- Righteous Jolly, 2020