My cousin Gavin Mee, who has died aged 42 after suffering from a heart condition, was a singer-songwriter, musician and storyteller in the tradition of John Martyn, Nick Drake and Randy Newman.
Gavin showed a great interest in music from an early age, teaching himself to play the guitar from the age of nine, and forming his first band, Burnt Toast, while still at school.
Born in Dublin, to Vera (nee Brennan), a nurse, and John Mee, a police officer, Gavin attended Willow Park boys school in nearby Blackrock. Burnt Toast, formed in 1992, consisted of Gavin on guitar and his schoolfriend Alan Rea on drums, with another friend recording them with mic and tape, and offering feedback, in Alan’s attic.
The band became Filth two years later, before petering out when Gavin went to University College Dublin to study business and legal studies. After graduating he seemed destined for a career in banking. However, three years into that experiment in convention, Gavin had had enough and set about transforming his life.
Armed with a few connections and his acoustic guitar, Gavin spent the next few years playing in basement cafes and taverns across Europe, making lifelong friendships everywhere he went. He set up his own label, and his first album, Breech Birth, released in 2006, featured intricate and playful tales from his travels. His original track, Cheekbones, and his cover of A Heart Needs a Home were standouts.
His touring now extended to the US, where Gavin completed several successful circuits of the coffeehouses and music bars of the upper midwest, as well as the western United States. Some of my fondest memories are of being on the road with him, and include our pilgrimage to the original Woodstock site or driving down to Nashville for Gavin to perform some of his famous “out of town chords”, as one impressed audience member said of his guitar playing.
His second album also took a leap forward, reflecting these travels through Europe and roaming the great plains and strips of the America that intrigued and bemused him in equal measure. Mee Mantras (2014) saw Gavin introduce a larger and more urgent sound, ably backed by a cadre of musicians and produced by his close friend and collaborator Duncan Maitland (alumnus of the bands Picturehouse and Pugwash).
In recent years, Gavin had embarked on a new chapter, studying for a master’s in psychotherapy at the Tivoli Institute in Dublin. Having worked for homeless charities in Dublin for many years, he felt certain this was the vehicle that would allow him to make some positive change in the world, while continuing to write and perform his music.
He will be awarded his MA posthumously in November.
Gavin is survived by his mother and his sister, Julie.
