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Guitarist Chantel McGregor to perform in Cambridge, a city she (half) calls home




A virtuoso guitarist and gifted singer, Bradford-born Chantel McGregor divides her time between her home town and Cambridge.

A guitar prodigy from a young age, Chantel enrolled at the Leeds College of Music and became the first student in the college’s history to achieve a 100 per cent pass mark, with 18 distinctions.

Chantel McGregor. Picture: Chris Griffiths
Chantel McGregor. Picture: Chris Griffiths

Chantel left with a first class honours degree in popular music and a coveted prize – the college’s musician of the year award.

She notes that she’s been “half living” in Cambridge for “about five years”. “My boyfriend lives there,” she reveals, “so we live in Romsey, just off Mill Road.”

“I come back up [to Bradford] quite often because my band’s still based up here,” says Chantel, who early in her career was invited to perform with renowned American guitarist Joe Bonamassa on two of his UK tours, “so I’m here pretty much every week!”

When Chantel released her 2011 debut album, Like No Other, one critic said: “Chantel McGregor deserves to be held up as a messiah of blues rock and given her own mountain.

“She doesn’t strum or pick her guitar but almost bends and distorts it, as if she’s channelling the ghost of Hendrix through her fingers.”

The Cambridge audience will get to see her talent up close when she performs in the city at the end of August.

On what she’s been up to of late, Chantel says: “We’ve been out on tour pretty much constantly for the last few months, and just heading back into the studio this week actually and have been doing some songwriting with a couple of producers – so the [new] album should be out by the end of the year, it’s very exciting.”

Chantel’s second album, Like Control, was released in October 2015 again to critical acclaim, and the single Take the Power was playlisted for five weeks on Planet Rock radio. She has since put out three more studio albums.

Chantel McGregor. Picture: Chris Griffiths
Chantel McGregor. Picture: Chris Griffiths

The proud Yorkshirewoman started playing the guitar at the age of three and had lessons from the age of seven.

On the artists who inspired her, she says: “I just sort of listened to everything really… I was obviously into the things that my parents had on, Zeppelin, Hendrix, that sort of thing.

“But I grew up listening to heavier things, Metallica and metal and grunge bands – but now I’m obsessed with country music!

“So it [my music] is kind of a big amalgamation of everything that I’ve ever listened to really.”

At what point did Chantel, who cites The Cadillac Three, Brad Paisley, and Lainey Wilson as three of her favourite country acts, decide to try and follow a career in music?

“Well I did my education alongside learning guitar, and then I went to uni and studied music,” she explains, “but in sixth form, I was like ‘Shall I do English? Shall I do music? Do I be an English teacher, or just stick with music?’

“And I was kind of like ‘Well I’m passionate about music but I’m not really that passionate about being an English teacher!’

“That’s what made me think I’ll go and do a music degree, and alongside that put my band together and get out gigging and building a following and a repertoire.

“I just kind of pushed my music while I was at uni, and then when I left uni I had a ready-made career to walk into, essentially, because I’d already been gigging for three years with my band.

“It was at that point I thought ‘Right, I really need to start upping it a bit and travelling further afield’, because I couldn’t really travel that far when I was at uni because obviously I had to be in uni…

“So it was like ‘Right, I can travel further, we can do shows in London or Scotland or wherever, and Europe as well’, and that was the turning point of ‘We’ll do ticketed venues and theatres’ and that became the career.”

In late 2020, Cleopatra Records released Gumbo Blues, a tribute album to the great jazz/blues icon Dr John, on which Chantel was one of the featured guitarists – though she never met the man himself as he passed away in 2019.

Which current artists would Chantel like to work with? “Probably a lot of the country ones, to be honest, because they’re just really interesting writers,” she replies.

“Then there’s all this progressive jazz stuff that I’m into as well, like Snarky Puppy, so they’d be interesting to work with as well – just the kind of people who would challenge me, I think.”

See Chantel McGregor do her thing – acoustically and electrically – when she performs at the Cambridge Junction (J2) on Friday, 30 August.

“I’m really passionate about Cambridge and the gig and being able to play somewhere that I’m so close to is fantastic,” she says.

Tickets, priced £21, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Chantel, go to chantelmcgregor.com.



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