This Week in the Studio: 11.03.19

Blog

Mar

2011

Written by Jimmy

A true ‘Discovery Artist’ day as we work on Michael and Charlotte’s Discovery Albums.

The Music: A Discovery Artist Day, where we brought sunshine to young Michael’s day and started Charlotte on the road to harmony…

Michael Covers Footprints: Fresh from vocal coaching (sing with head and chest!), Michael joined us first thing in the morning and without even a slight moment of protest jumped right into doing a cover of Footprints, which was written the week before. Michael himself refers to his love of misery and the angst of his lyrics – so it was a pleasure for all to listen to him singing about Sunshine. He was even amused but made sure we didn’t really know it.
Michael Covers Floating: What? This is beyond Sunshine! Floating is all about ‘two lovers floating in a bubble, free from trouble.’ Oh Goodness. And Michael, without a single complaint again jumped right in and sang away! He was almost breaking a smile. Almost. Michael’s performance on these two songs reminded Jimmy of The The – where Matt Johnson would give you miserable lyrics sung with sunshine abandon, especially with This is the Day and Uncertain Smile.

Re-do the Vocals for I’ll Be Frank. Inspired by the sun, singing about sunshine and floating in bubbles, young Michael was inspired to redo his vocals for I’ll Be Frank (aka, To Be Frank and Gaps to Claw). We’re just not sure what is getting into him, but happiness performs wonders. This song ends with a great sax outro (three tracks layered on top of each other) by Andrea. Leads to the inevitable discussion of the top 10 Sax moments in Rock & Roll. Sure enough, there’s a good list: click here. Of these, here are some favourites: Dave Parry on Us and Them (from 5.22 on) and Shine on you Crazy Diamond and Ronnie Ross on Walk on the Wild Side (but listen to full list if you have a moment):

Charlotte Brings Dollar and the Dime. We then did a quick recording of Charlotte’s Dollar and the Dime, with her lovely vocals, Andy on Backing Vocals and Keys, Rob on drums, bass, shaker and tamborine and Martyn on Harmonica. This is her first original song she’s brought to the Studio and we’re looking forward to lots more. We need to bring a fiddle next time and maybe a banjo to move this song further and further toward ‘I’ll Fly Away’ (which really suits Charlotte’s voice):

Everything Else

Sunshine: A week from the start of British Summer Time and Saturday was sparkling blue skies – we ate our pizza in the sun as planes flew overhead (sadly, can anyone look at a plane against a blue sky without thinking of the towers?). It was all together too much for Michael and he almost, well… giggled. We almost raced Michael in to cover Sunshine on My Shoulder by John Denver — well, no we didn’t, but for a earnest walk down memory lane, here you go… watch the sugar:

Africa: Andy and Jimmy spent a lot of Saturday unpacking boxes for the Africa trip -we’re assembling two mobile recording studios that we’re bringing down for recording as part of the Singing Wells project. We’ll keep a blog on our activities, so please keep up…
Louise: We then went to watch Louise at Richmond Theatre where she’s starring as the Reluctant Débutante in the Reluctant Débutante. We had our usual pre-play Chinese food at the Four Regions with a big crowd (Martyn, Alice, Rob, Jimmy, Kathy, Morgan, Hunter, Anne, Sophie, Hillary, Alli, Henrik, Louisa), then to the show. We had drinks after with Louise and all proclaimed her a star.
Poster 1 with Louise on Left

Louise in Second Poster

Louise with Parents

Louise with ‘the Good David’

Jimmy