After a quiet period through the Summer I have a couple of new releases out this month .
The first one is an Instrumental written on the ship during the final sea day of our cruise to Alaska and the Aleutian Island this summer. The track is called Misty Fjords and is inspired by the National park of that name which was the last stop before the cruise finished in Vancouver . We has a zodiac cruise through the Fjord very early on a damp and misty day and the silence , the scenery and the atmosphere were spectacular . A beautiful place.
The Track is available on Bandcamp initially , but will later on be streamable on all the usual services.
The second release is a production version of Hole in the Room , a song I wrote earlier this year, which I produced initially to enter into the MASC Song Contest . The track as ever features Ted Fordney on Stand-up Bass ( although he was delayed by 2 hurricanes !) , Pete Young on keyboards and Mervyn Brunt on Violin .
In addition to these two tracks I recorded stripped back live versions of three of my favourite Covers by Songwriters I know/have known. These are just vocal and a single guitar so very much as I would play them live . I will post a link at the end of this to enable you to download them for free .
Something about a Heart written by Rick Hardeman. Rick was a highly talented songwriter /singer who I met in Florida and played with on a number of occasions live . He also joined me on flute, both live and on the Wildflowers album. He now lives in North Carolina .
Learn to be Still written by James Hawkins .James was a folk singer/songwriter from Venice in Florida , who writes many songs about the local history of the area amongst other things . This song is on his first album , but a very different arrangement played on the piano . I originally recorded this just before lockdown and it’s on the Wildflowers album , but it was very new to me at that time .This version is a new live version , having “run in” the song now in live performances .
See You Around Sometime written by Neil Lewis. Neil was a guitarist and songwriter from South Wales who sadly passed away some ten years ago now . I met Neil when I was at University and he played as part of a double act Luce and Lewis , when not playing guitar for Max Boyce . We played support to them a number of times with my college band and got to know him and this song has been a favorite of mine ever since . I had stopped playing it due to the issues with my little finger , but can play it again since my surgery last year so this recording is a celebration of that .
Having a quiet few months apart from these recordings but will close off the year with The Maskelleros at The Seven Stars in Bristol in December . We plan a suitably Christmassy set and hope to go out with a bang !