Elbow were formed in Bury (near Manchester) in 1990, when guitarist Mark Potter met lead singer Guy Garvey and asked him to sing in a band he was in with drummer Richard Jupp and bassist Pete Turner. Named "Mr Soft" (which was later to "Soft"), the band grew from a 4 piece to a 5 piece with the addition of Potter's brother Craig on keyboards. By 1997, they had changed their name to Elbow (from a line in the BBC TV mini-series The Singing Detective which says that the word "elbow" is the most sensuous word in the English language - not for its definition, but for how it feels to say it), signed a deal with Island Records, and recorded their debut album with producer Steve Osborne. However, when Island was bought out by Universal, the band was dropped in a mass cull and the album never released.
Elbow continued to record on the iconic independent label Uglyman, and released 3 EPs, "The Noisebox", "The Newborn" and "The Any Day Now", all which were given extensive airplay by BBC Radio 1. Second debut album attempt, "Asleep in the Back", released on V2 in 2001, gained Elbow a Mercury Music Prize nomination and a BRIT Award nomination. Sophomore album "Cast of Thousands" (a reference to their performance at 2002's Glastonbury where they recorded thousands of people singing, "We still believe in love, so f*ck you") was released in 2003. In 2004, Elbow went on an unofficial tour of Cuba, becoming the first British band ever to play a concert outside Havana. Also in 2004, single "Fallen Angel" appeared in the film "9 Songs", notable as being regarded as the most sexually explicit film ever to be awarded an 18 Certificate by the British Board of Film Classification, and an unreleased track, "Beats For Two", was used in the closing titles of the film "Inside I'm Dancing".

Elbow contributed the song "Snowball" to the 2005 War Child benefit album "Help: a Day in the Life", however third LP "Leaders of the Free World", entirely self-produced at Blueprint Studios in Salford, Manchester, faltered commercially, and the band subsequently signed to Fiction Records. Late 2007 saw the band completing their fourth studio album, "The Seldom Seen Kid", also self produced, mixed and recorded without outside help. This did much better than it's predecessor, earning them a second Mercury Music Prize nomination in 2008.

Guy Garvey has produced the debut album for I Am Kloot, and also their single "Maybe I Should." He continues to work closely with Manchester indie label Skinny Dog.