This weekend I will be going to help Calaid sort and pack donations that will be going to refugee camps in Europe. Its only a small thing but as my wife and I have been thinking about what we could do we heard about Calaid and so thats why we are going. In such an overwhelming and seemingly hopeless situation we want to do something and be part of bringing hope and transformation. It may only be a ripple, but many ripples could be a wave of transformation.
When I was performing recently at Warwick Folk Club i met Chris Cleverly whose guitar playing and soft soothing voice had me gripped! Great night, thanks for the songs Chris
We are currently renting off some friends and they have a very musical home with lots of guitars, sadly left handed so I can't do much with them. There are mandolins, a lute, percussion instruments and a piano. I have enjoyed attempting to play the piano.
Its great being surrounded by musical instruments, and the music room has pictures of David (our friend) playing in various bands that he used to be in.
Check out my good friend James Prescott's podcasts here, he has been interviewing some incredible people like Sarah Bessey author of "Out of Sorts" and "Jesus Feminist".
With a week to go before the big event let's get up to speed with what's happening.
So why the event? Rechord Live 24 is our first ever live stream event and it's also our first big fundraiser. For a full 24 hours you lucky bunch can tune in to watch and worship with us from the comfort of your living room - great news! But we also have a £5,000 target we are trying to hit! We are so thankful for all of the support you have already shown us whether at Rechord Sessions or when downloading tracks and so we're asking you to get behind us once again!
As a non-profit organisation, Rechord exists to mobilise the singers and songwriters of todays churches, to use the gifts that God has given them by enabling the process of recording, producing and distributing their music. We believe that worship artists should be given every opportunity and encouragement to share their gift with the local and wider Church, without any hindrance or barrier. All the artists that Rechord work with share a heart for creating new worship music to glorify God and build up the church.
What makes Rechord different however is that we don't charge for the recording and distribution of any of our tracks. We believe that good worship music should be recorded and available and that cost shouldn't get in the way of great music being produced to glorify God. We always encourage our artists to make a contribution to the cost of production as well as asking all who download tracks to donate. Ultimately though, if we like a track we'll always record it, regardless of money.
On 29-30 January you have a wonderful opportunity to tune in to Rechord Live 24 and enjoy the music of some very talented worship singers and songwriters. This is a fundraising event and so we are asking that as well as joining us in worship, you would please consider donating and supporting all that Rechord do to keep the vision alive and enable us to keep doing what we love. Here's where you can do that: https://mydonate.bt.com/events/live24/
So in case you didn't already know who Rechord are and why we exist, now you do!
Here is a video from my November performance at A Collection Of Folk, watch the other artists which includes clients from the workshops run by Lupus Albus or jump straight into to my song "Wish You All The Best"
I was so glad to hear A Collection Of Folk will continue to host their monthly gigs at St Giles in the fields on Denmark Street. I wish them all the very best!
Laisser Passer started out with a simple guitar loop and keyboard loop which then we built around. It was not much at the start but Davis gave some flavour to it with horns, bass, beats and more. We tracked a guitar riff to guide the session guitarist.
Heritage started with some beats and bass lines. We built a series of loops for verses and choruses. This was later worked on by Cissa. I also recorded the backing vocals. It was really nice working on this song.
Trone de grace: was an old song of Bernards that he wanted to rework, slow down and chill out. We tracked him live singing and playing on keys to give us a guide. Davis tracked some drums and bass, I added some swells and guitar. The rest fell nicely in to place after. It was great tracking all the harmonies. We tracked the sax as well in Bernards house.
Alleluia was another remake of an old song. Bernard wanted something quite simple, we tracked some guitar and electric piano. I was able to add some electric guitars on top of the structure we had. Bernard took this to a studio to add vocals, more keys and layers.
I helped record and produce a number of tracks for Senegalese singer Cissa, who is avery talented songwriter and musician. Check out my song by song blogs over the next few days for some behind the scenes chat about the songs we worked on together.
Voyage came about from a melody Bernard and in mind for guitar. He tracked a synth guitar and I added a real acoustic underneath it. I also added electric guitars. Davis tracked the drums with Addictive. The drum break was recorded by me as well with Honore, who played Djembe, Talking Drum and some other percussion for the break. It was a really funky tune, Davis and bernard made the horns sections as well.
Same Katt was my first ever reggae tune. Bernard has a real creative mind, he had lots of ideas for sounds, melodies for all of the songs, but this one in particular he had an idea for the strings. So we looked around my samples for ages before getting the right sound. I played electric guitars on the track and some acoustic too. Davis made the beats, another session player added the cracking bass line. Later Cissa worked with Trinity a dutch band on the song to add the flute and the english vocals. We added synths, organs and lots of sounds to this. We tracked some real djembe as well which was cool