ELAINE GILMORE and the songs of Burt Bacharach.

Love Is Still The Answer - LISTEN AND BUY IT HERE!

It is not very often that we spend over a year making an album - but quality takes time - and a masterpiece takes a little longer!

Featuring The Welsh Television Orchestra which is comprised of the top musicians in Wales. If you then add to that some of the most outstanding musicians in the whole of the UK, then it is a good bet the music is in safe hands.

Elaine Gilmore and Al Steele first began talking through arrangements way back in May 2019. As well as sifting through some rather gorgeous new versions of Bacharach's songs, we wanted to make sure we were being true to the composers intentions - at least for the melody and the lyrics. The actual arrangements were all up for grabs and we were certainly not going to scotch a good idea if it came our way!

After the actual music is written - yes we write it, we don't buy it! - there are several ways to attempt a project like this.
1) The usual way is to get as many of the band in the same room and get through as much material as you can, while it is all set up. This is always great fun - but a bit stressful - and you get what you get.
2) Attack each song in smaller chunks. Rhythm Section - Strings - Brass - Woodwinds.
This is the way we chose to do it. Probably each way would come out at a similar price, but the 2nd method allows much more attention to detail. For a start everything is recorded in isolation, so fixing or patching in is a cinch! The other thing is the client doesn't need to find the multiple thousands of pounds in one hit! - funny enough - I don't know too many singers/musicians whose middle name is 'money bags' so this can often work out better

And so it started. In this case Al decided to do piano/bass/drums at the same time, so the feel would be nailed down. This would include complex tempo changes, so we were using click tracks throughout. This was also essential for tying in the other sections as we got to them. 

 

Nigel Hart was on grand piano upstairs in Studio 2 - Al chose to play bass himself while engineering in the control room- and Paul Smith (Elaine's hubby, but also powerhouse drummer for The Korgis) was in the drum booth. No - we don't hate each other, and because everything is miked we can all talk as if we were in the same room. We typically did one run through, then two maybe three takes before moving on to the next song. We did 4 sessions in this way. Al would later dub guitars, but only after the rest of the orchestration was in place, so as not to get in anyone's way.

Typically we tracked strings in next as that makes an massive difference to the sound. We use 10 1st Violins, 8 2nd Violins, 4 violas and 3 cello's. Unless the song had no bass guitar we wouldn't use double bass, as the two would conflict.

 

 

Our featured string players are Richard Mainwaring, Korine Colborne and Claudine Cassidy. These guys work VERY HARD to create that big lush sound.

 

Next came the brass and woodwinds. These guys have been with us ever since Shabbey Road started up way back in 1999. They are not only great friends but exemplary players who take pride in every note - no matter how high it is!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Mainwaring,
the brothers Ceri and Alun Rees
and our favourite northerner Phil Jarvis!

 

 

A couple of fantastic musos contributed .
Can't thank you enough Bruce Adams and Simon Allen...

you guys took it to another level!

 

It will come as no surprise that when we came to record the vocals, no stone was left unturned!

Elaine began by singing them the way she would on stage - and anyone who has seen her will know she really delivers - but quickly realise she could do so much more. She paid attention to every note - every vowel sound - and came up with something that can be listened to again and again. You will hear something new every time.

That is the nature of great musicians and a great singer bouncing off each other.
 

We had so much fun making this album - the mixing was easy. You don't need to micro-balance great players because the balance is there in the playing. Sure we tweaked things but there was no re-inventing the wheel on these sessions!

Ceri Darknell designed an album cover that looks like it has been stolen from the sixties!! So many of these songs are about love that we wanted the look of the album to make you feel good before you ever played it. We love Spotify and Youtube, but this is one album you really want to hold in your hand!

Please do check it out -  it is well worth it - and while you are at it subscribe to Elaine's website. There is more great music where this came from!
 

Love Is Still The Answer - LISTEN AND BUY IT HERE

Well we made it to 2021!

We have been asked often how we have managed through Covid. Many people feel their creativity has been strangled - especially in terms of gigs... and it is sometimes hard to put a positive spin on things - but that is exactly what we have tried to do.

It begins with a funny story! On the last day of February Al Steele was in Scotland conducting a 28-piece orchestra for David Juan Lozano. 2 hours before the rehearsal Al was rushed to hospital with a suspected stroke. As it turned out it was something much more benign and he was given a course of antibiotics - and much more relevant! - a short course of steroids, and was sent on his way, just in time to get the rehearsal and gig under way. As some of you may know, Al is pretty full-on even WITHOUT steroids, but these turned him into a runaway train!

Before anyone could say SLOW DOWN!... he had begun a remote writing collaboration that would turn into a new Korgis album. By the time 2 months had elapsed there were 10 songs underway for a concept album no less! James Warren and Al then began overdubbing the band and vocals. John Baker co-wrote some of the songs as well and came across to add his unique vocal talents to the album.

Somewhere in this time period Al and Ceri reworked Studio 2 into a partial green screen/live recording room and Al wrote a few more songs to try it out! Rob Sherwood worked his magic in re-wiring everything and then sitting in on some of the live sessions on whatever instrument was required! Here he is playing bass on Al's Moonshine

As the initial lockdown eased some clients braved a few hours at the studio and we resumed our recording of Elaine Gilmore's Bacharach album 'Love Is Still the Answer'. As you would imagine full orchestra recording is a little more tricky once you introduce social distancing(!) but with a mixture of multi-tracking and remote recording we managed to get some great sounding sessions.

Roosevelt put our a few out-of-the box videos all recorded remotely and put together here at Shabbey. Toward the end of the year we managed to squeeze in a proper recording day in Studio 2. Here is our lockdown piece-de-resistance - Lockdown With You

The Music Man Project after it's amazing gig at The Royal Albert Hall was planning a trip to New York to do some concerts - unfortunately that was put on hold - but nevertheless the music still had to be written. For the Albert Hall gig Al wrote 140,000 notes!

David Stanley (just awarded an OBE!) began composing the music and Al (no OBE yet!) began the arranging in earnest. We also planned a 2nd album hopefully to be recorded when the pandemic died down. With this we seemed to be a week late with every plan as different parts of the country locked down. The last plan was late Jan 2021 - but that is now unlikely in the extreme!

Well the tail end of the year just seemed like a roller-coaster. Al had begun writing with an amazing country artist called Caitlin May - 6 songs in the bag so far and another few under way! Somewhere around September the tracking for The Korgis was complete and the mixing mastering began. In December Elaine Gilmore released her album to great acclaim, and The Korgis released two singles that went bananas on the streaming sites.

We also did some brilliant songs through the year with Gavin Clifton, Darren Parry, Ian Mitchard, Ray Gee and many many more. We have some incredibly large projects coming up with Hegsy and the Elements that involve at least 3 countries!

On a positive note, Nigel Hart who had been a mystery to modern medicine and suffering with what he called Bongo Bongo(!) had an op, and just in time for Christmas was able to do lots of drinking experiments to check whether he was cured of Bongo Bongo. 17 bottles of wine later, his recovery is looking very promising.

From what could have been a very boring year, we somehow managed to surmount the many obstacles that 2020 threw our way and come out smelling of roses! STILL we hope that 2021 is a step up for all and a return to some sort of normality.

HAPPY 2021!

 

 

In June 2020, we decided we had time for a bit of a refurb upstairs.  

Al and Ceri had been dabbling with green screen on a regular basis, so they figured that if they could find a shade of green that was not too extreme they might turn the upstairs into (at least a partial) green screen room.  

We had already been using the room for the old school recording of the forthcoming Roosevelt album and also as the main rehearsal space for The Korgis.  

With the social distancing that Covid was making necessary, the upstairs seemed an ideal space to do some live videos - in the absence of any real gigs. We set about making it a permanently set-up recording/filming space. 

Our Korgis drummer and also regular session player Paul Smith spilled the beans that he had three(!) kits and would be up for leaving one set up at the studio. This turned out to be excellent timing as his partner Elaine Gilmore was in the middle of recording her Bacharach album - Love Is Still The Answer, and the kit would already be set up for that. 

Al had his eye on a 360 camera thinking that could be a neat look and as we would be playing 'in the round' the 360 camera would be ideal. Bolstered up by the new Samsung phone cameras we should be able to cover everything that moves. 

Here is how that all turned out!

So who would have thought that at this point in the year we would all be at home, driving each other mad! 

At Shabbey Road, we had just about finished the Elaine Gilmore album, 'Love Is Still The Answer' - The Songs of Burt Bacharach, and we were looking forward to the launch gig in a couple of weeks. 
On the up side, Elaine posted up our video of 'What The World Needs Now Is Love', and it seemed to strike a chord as to date it has had 19000 views in less than two weeks! Maybe we can harness that interest to do something good for the world! 

 

After The Korgis rip-roaring sell-out show in Bath in January, we were looking forward to our flurry of gigs in May, beginning with The 100 Club in London and carrying on with a little tour of Holland. 
Strangely the 100 gig has not yet been cancelled, but find it unlikely we will be virus free by the middle of May. 
If the guidelines have relaxed a little by then, we may try to do a live session for the 'Upstairs@Shabbey Road' series. That would be a lot of fun, and also brush some of the rust of the set! 

Talking of 'Upstairs@ShabbeyRoad', it occurred to us that as there were no gigs to go to, it might be nice to feature some people who had filmed in our upstairs room. In addition, I could add a few things myself. Here is my first attempt to clone myself! 
A song I wrote many moons ago called 'I Dream Of You'. 
I Dream Of You - Upstairs @ Shabbey Road 

Really hope that all our buddy's are keeping well, and steering through these financially and socially tricky times. It will come to an end, and we are hoping for much sooner, rather than much later! 

Stay safe one and all, Al