Gregory Abbott

Platinum recording artist, songwriter and producer Gregory Abbott's roots stem from Venezuela (his mother) and the Island of Antigua (his father). Raised in Harlem in New York City, he is a dual citizen of the USA and Antigua.

In college he majored in psychology and minored in music and dramatic arts. He holds a Masters degree and is currently working towards his Ph.D and was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship to Stanford University's Creative writing Masters program. While pursuing graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco, he helped pay his tuition by starting a band. It was here he developed his own personal musical style. While teaching English at Berkeley, he decided to become a professional musician, built a studio, and applied his academic discipline to developing skills as a singer, composer and producer.

Abbott released the single and album "Shake You Down" shaking up the music industry with countless honors and awards. Abbotts' music has gone to number one on charts all over the world. He's won first prize at the Tokyo Music Festival where his performance was broadcast to over two billion people.

"Shake You Down" has the distinction of reaching one milliion radio airplays faster than any song in the history of BMI (now well over three million), and won BMI's Pop Song of the Year award. Gregory has also won two 'Soul Train" music awards for Best Male Singer and Best New Artist, He has been the star of the New York Music Awards, receiving four honors: Best R&B Album, Best Debut Album, Best R&B Vocalist, and the Rising Star Award. He has walked away with two awards at Dick Clark's "Black Gold" ceremonies, another honor from the R&B Awards in Las Vegas, a N.Y.Image award, and two awards from the annual CEBA Awards dinner (Communications Excellence Aimed at Black Audiences).

He's had numerous top five hits both as an artist as well as a producer and written for many other artists. Abbotts' music has crossed every barrier imaginable. You hear the Caribbean/Spanish influence in his music, topped off with his incredibly smooth, soulful voice.

Gregory Abbott coined the term "groove ballad". When referring to him, music writers have affectionately used the term "Wall Street Soul". He is a favorite with the ladies for his sophisticated demeanor and intelligent green eyes with a sense of something much more.

Abbott comes from a family of entertainers. His first cousin Diahnne Abbott was for many years married to actor Robert De Niro, and is herself an actor of merit. Gregory has guest starred on the daytime drama "All My Children" and is now delving more heavily into acting and film production.

Abbott is involved in community service work and has also praticipated in campaigns focused on economic empowerment, physical and spiritual health and political awareness. He's served on the Board of Directors of both NARAS (the Grammys'), and the NAPM (Songwriters Hall of Fame).

For the past several years Abbott has concentrated on releasing a multitude of singles and writing songs for film and television as he has found this to be the most effective way to reach his numerous fans. He's also released a compilation of some of those singles on Spectra Records and plans a new album release of more of them on his "Mojo Man" label.