SOUL SURMISE

THE BLACK SPOT IN MY BOB DYLAN VLOG - LESSONS IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD

Gutted. To do a Bob Dylan evening and get something factually wrong loses the VLOG a lot of credibility. The man who murdered Hattie Carroll was not Zinger but Zantzinger. I knew that. I have heard the songs enough times. 

The lesson of course was to catch on quickly enough to re-record the VLOG. It is a hard way to learn that lesson. You can be sure that when we return to the Light In Rock Music series in the autumn with hopefully editions on Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Coldplay and Mumford & Sons we will be recording a week in advance of going out on Fitzroy TV!

This is another of those differences between the new virtual church and how it is different from the physical one. 

I was concerned about the new format. Our popular Fitzroy series The Gospel According To… worked off a live buzz. It was a cross between a concert and a seminar. It had spontaneous moments and it was not watched after the event. You had to be there.

When I started planning the Light In Rock Music series I was immediately aware that what I said would be heard differently. There would be a wider audience. There would be more hard core Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and U2 fans watching. What I said would be under more scrutiny. I didn’t need to get the name of the man who murdered Hattie Carroll wrong! A mistake like that would not be lost in the live ether.

For the Van Morrison edition, I scripted it. After I recorded though I was unhappy. As I have said about the Sunday services there is a need for a relationship with the screen and I hated looking at notes. That means downloading the script into my head and I have found that the way I have scheduled this series so close to Sunday sermons that this week that  has been all a little too much.

Lesson learned. I hope that apart from the hardcore Dylanophiles, that I can hear tutting, that this edition will be helpful for those who want some insight into how Bob Dylan has used Scripture right across his catalogue. 

I think I draw out a lot of helpful light in Dylan's work particularly a song released in 1964 about race and civil rights that is tragically still prophetic in 2020, maybe more so. The Church needs to see that light and apply it quickly. 

Very best of all, are the performances of Chris Taylor. They are wonderful and the VLOG is worth watching just for them alone. 

The Light In Rock Music series is available on HERE

WHAT LESSONS CAN CHURCHES LEARN FROM OUR CORONAVIRUS EXPERIENCE

Below is my Coronavirus Column in the Belfast Telegraph on Saturday July 4th 2020.

Let me preface that article with some up to date Stockman Surmising.

I have been very hard ball these past few weeks about why churches should not be not opening. That posture comes from my fear that there would be pressure on colleagues to open churches as soon as it became possible. As my article states I do not think that there is any need to rush back into church buildings if church as it should be could not happen in the building. 

However, I am aware that not all churches are not like Fitzroy. They don't all have a production team to create on-line services, or the number of gifted musicians to lead worship from their smart phones or even the resources for the congregation to watch on-line. In such situations it might well be the best thing for that congregation to begin to gather sooner rather than later. 

I am aware that some smaller Presbyterian congregations are meeting on July 5th, some allowing those with no access to internet to watch in the building, some are experimenting with the idea, some working on two sites. I am praying that such services go well. This article is a reasoned argument for those of us who feel that not only do we not need to gather yet but that we are better in the short term not to gather.

 

Last Monday churches were given the green light to reopen. Should we rush right back or leave it until more of us are allowed in the building? Will getting back to the building be a spiritually tonic or might we lose some of the lessons learned in these strange days? There is a lot of debate and discussion among church leaders. 

The truth is that churches reopening is easier rhetoric than reality. 

There are many health and safety issues, from physical distancing to ways in and out of buildings to the human resources and financial cost of the meticulous cleaning that will be necessary to allow us to attend week after week. 

Then there is the service itself. We will have to curtail fellowship. There will be no communal singing. Apparently the preacher can’t even raise his or her voice. With Celtic evangelicals like me that is a big ask!

The limited numbers will mean either booking your seat or rotating your congregation by groups. In Fitzroy more people would be excluded from a service than would be allowed in. What would we do with visitors who turn up not knowing the booking system?

It all leads me to ask what Church actually is? I fear that we might have people gathering in a church building but that the gathering might not be anything like what church is supposed to be. Fellowship without tea and coffee? Worship without singing? The body with members barred? 

Into that discussion it might be helpful to ask what we have learned about Church in lockdown. We discovered that the church buildings might be closed but churches were very much open. We learned that the church was not about bricks but about people. We learned that we could pastor one another from the kitchen table with phone calls, that we could gather for prayer and committee meetings as well as continuing youth and children’s work, and even Baby and Toddler groups, by Zoom and that we could all feel very much part of a worship service by being creative on Youtube.

In Fitzroy we found that we have never had such a handle on our pastoral needs. We found more at the Zoom prayer meeting than we we met in church. We were astounded that our on-line services reached maybe five times what we might have had on Sundays before lockdown and that now we have weekly members from British Columbia to Ohio to Greece to Bangladesh to Australia.

As we ponder when to return I am not prioritising so much the urgency of people in a building so much as what is best for the spiritual formation, pastoral care and missional reach of our ministry. Even when we get back to physically gathering we would be wrong to leave behind the benefits we have found in the virtual possibilities of these months.

Finally, as we try to avoid just a quick reflex back to how it was I hope that the our returning to the buildings doesn’t make us spiritually complacent. It is sometimes too easy to think that going to church on a Sunday morning is enough. In lockdown many of us having been praying more, reading the Bible more and pondering spiritual things more. Please God that continues.  

Do not get me wrong. I cannot wait to see Fitzroy filled once more. I love the live connection of preaching and prayer and the deep fellowship in our Welcome Area afterwards. However, the same Fitzroy Sunday that we last enjoyed in March is still a long way off. We need to think of the right time to start returning and when we do, it needs to be spiritually even more enriching than it was.

RAY LaMONTAGNE - MONOVISION

After a few albums where he has experimented with his sound, using producers such as Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys and Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne has gone back to basics and not only produced Monovision but played everything on it. I have enjoyed those last three records but this one might be his best of all.

As well as going back to basics LaMontagne goes back to the early 70s for his influence. Strong Enough is all Creedence Clearwater, Summer Clouds could be Joni Mitchell and Misty Morning Rain is Van Morrison circa Tupelo Honey. Right across the album are echoes of Neil Young, that lonesome harmonica and rustic strum of the Comes A Time record.

In it all, LaMontagne remains somehow himself, the real songwriting McCoy in a world of big voices who wish they had LaMontagne songwriting chops. 

Everything here is pastoral in the sense of land and sky but also pastoral in how we might get ourselves through Coronavirus Times. We’ll make It Through says all that we have been feeling:

 

I know you’re scared ‘cause you can’t see the light

You toss and turn through the night

Holding me, and I’m holding you

And together, we’ll get through

We always do

 

This is a song and this is an album to help us through these strange 2020 days. It’ll be on my playlist for a long time.

TOMORROW IN FITZROY WAS HARD WORK TO RECORD

Recording on-line sermons were new to me 4 months ago and though they are now very much the norm they do not always run smoothly.

It is a very different gift. I have needed to create a relationship with a screen. I look back to fleeting moments on Sky News, The View or on Melvyn Bragg’s South Bank as helpful experience but it wasn’t a lot. I was glad to be able to pick up on a new discipline quickly.

The new preparation skills have perhaps been more difficult. I don’t feel that if I am speaking to a screen that I can look at notes, whether down or up or sideways. That has meant preparing notes very differently. They are diagrammatical so that if I have to I can give a quick glance to know where I am going next.

This week’s sermon was the worst experience I have had. I had problems over the 24 hours before recording downloading the content on paper into my head. I felt I had something to say. The Lectionary text in Matthew 11 was so relevant to Covid 19 times. I was happy with that but I couldn’t get the flow. 

I asked Alison, our Fitzroy TV sermons producer in our Streamyard studio, for an extra half hour and paced the kitchen, increasing my Saturday step count, trying to get the flow right.

When we started I wasn’t my usual confident self. Then there was a ping. A Facebook message arrived in and we had to stop. Switch off Facebook and my phone. Take 2.

Take 2 was ok but nothing like the standard I demand from my delivery. About two thirds of the way through I stumbled over my favourite Mumford & Sons quote. I stumbled so badly that I stopped. Alison actually said that I wasn’t in the zone. Indeed. I asked for an extra half hour to go pacing around that kitchen again.

Eventually, I was back and right in the zone and, though it is for you not me to judge in the morning, I was very content with the final result. As you watch tomorrow, be aware of the struggle it was and the time and patience that Alison and my in-house sound engineer Jasmine had to give me.

The Lectionary is relevant again for our Coronavirus world. The two major ideas of rest and wisdom are pertinent. As I unpack those words we look at them in the social and spiritual realms. God tells Solomon he can ask for anything. What would we answer to that? Jesus invites us to lay down our burdens. Will we take him up on that invite? 

The sermon, like the service, is scattered with Ugandan references. A Fitzroy team should be in Arua, Uganda right now and we hear greetings from those we would be working with. I even wear an African shirt. It all makes for a colourful service.

Recording the evening Light From Rock Music was not smooth either. I recorded that on Friday and whereas last week I had a written script for the Van Morrison edition I wanted to be more focused on the screen than my notes. Again, it took a few takes.

However, I am quite happy with this exploration of Bob Dylan’s entire catalogue. We do spend a part of it in his “Gospel Years” as they have come to be known when Dylan was very much claiming a born again Christian stance between 1979 and 1981. 

However, we ask if Dylan’s early 60s Civil Rights phase was more prophetic than his Christian years and then look at his brand new number 1 album Rough and Rowdy Ways and ask if there is still Light to be found there. 

Adding to it all are the covers of Dylan songs by Chris Taylor, all the way from San Antonio, who I believe to have one of the best voices to traverse Dylan’s lyric-scape as proven on his wonderful record Down A Dead End Street. 

 

The Fitzroy Sunday Service will be on Fitzroy TV  from 11am on July 5, 2020

Light In Rock Music Vol 2: Bob Dylan - Pressing On will be on Fitzroy TV from 7pm on July 5, 2020

SOUL SURMISE INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN HOUSTON ABOUT HIS NEW PROJECT THE PRESLEYS

A few weeks ago an album sneaked out onto all streaming platforms by a band called The Presleys. You might have missed it. 

It is an album of modern blues, edgy in sound and content. It all has a contemporary urban garage band sounding rock strut. At a time when the streets of America are full of tension and Coronavirus is a shadow across our world the music on Embrace sounds imperfectly perfect. 

If you look closer, the main man on the record is none other than Belfast songwriter Brian Houston. The songs were birthed in North Carolina as part of a charity project. It is nothing like Brian has ever done before, a welcome new iron in his talented fire, the spontaneous work of an artist discovering a fresh and fertile field.

I was so fascinated by its origins, intentions and place in the Brian Houston catalogue that I spent a happy evening going back and forward with Brian on Facebook to find out who the Presleys are and how Embrace came about.

 

So, who are The Presleys?

The Presleys is a construct. It started life as me and my friend Ned. But he suffered a couple of bereavements back to back in the middle other issues and decided he was better out of it. So now it’s one of my alter egos.

 

We'll get to your alter ego in a minute. tell me how working with ned gave them direction of the record it's initial impetus. What did he bring?

We had agreed to do some live streaming from a house the Charity was renting to help raise funds for their cause. The charity was called Embrace. Hence the name of the album. 

Ned and I drove there the first day discussing if we should play worship songs or covers of classic tunes. We had no clue what to do. 

We set up the gear. Just Ned on drums and me on electric guitar. I played a couple of chords and Ned jammed along. Next thing we knew I’d written a song called I Can Feel The Rain because the shack we were in had a tin roof and we could hear the rain beating hard on it. We recorded the song on our phones and rehearsed it a few more times then went live on FB. We packed up and went home. 

It took Ned by surprise that it happened so easily and quickly. He asked me if that counted as a co-write and I explained the mechanics of songwriting. 

I wrote another the next day and Ned was shocked by the speed of it. It motivated him to be much more forward with his ideas. 

Soon he was throwing in as many ideas as me. Rhythm ideas, tempo changes, lyric ideas and melody ideas. 

When we had done about eight or ten live Facebook posts we called it a day. 

The songs were recorded on our phones and we didn’t look at them again until Ned came to Belfast and we started recording. 

The song Gun Store was Neds idea. He made it up as a joke but to me it sounded like a hit so we worked at it until it had structure and melody. It was finished we thought then we came up with the idea of adding a rap. Ned has a friend in Raleigh who recorded his rap and sent it to me to put in the song.

 

So. working with Ned gave you an other avenue to go down. Did he give you the chance to do something you always wanted to or did you find something you'd never thought of doing?

The fact that Ned and I have been friends for 7 years and we’re completely comfortable playing together meant there was no pressure. He is very good at just rolling with what ever I try or wherever I go. 

There was no expectation nor agenda so in someways the place we were in and the stories we were hearing about homeless people first hand were all feeding my imagination. I actually woke up with the whole of Poor in America in my head. That rarely happens. But the creative juices were just flowing with no egos in the way. 

I think the fact that Ned was a relative novice when it came to writing and recording meant that he was enjoying the exploring as much as me. 

When you come from Belfast and you’re in a ghetto in Durham NC and you’re seeing the poverty and the people up close it’s very a powerful stimulus. 

Also I hadn’t used a Gibson SG guitar before and it was definitely influencing the style of music and taking it in a bluesy direction. And probably the fact that we only asked one song of ourselves each day, one performance, one video, meant that we could spend all day writing and rehearsing then broadcast it and forget about it. The next day was a fresh start.

 

There certainly is an American feel about the sound  and the content of the songs. Was that easier for a Belfast boy to sing about under The Presleys moniker?

The name was the last thing to come. For a long time we called it the “NED” project. It was Ned’s mom who suggested the Presleys. 

It was certainly easier to feel like I could rock out and never feel the need to reign it in because “I’m Brian Houston the folky guy” 

I really felt we could push into blues and rock unselfconsciously because it wasn’t a Brian Houston project. 

To be able to find that childlike freedom to do what I felt like without worrying about what it said about my career, was a tremendous adrenalin shot in the arm.

 

The Presleys? No risks of Lisa Marie suing?

Wouldn’t that be an amazing piece of publicity.

 

So, any other projects pending?

Well I’m just mastering an album that’s singer songwriter in nature. The first single Ivory Tower will be released on July 10.

LIGHT FROM ROCK MUSIC: BOB DYLAN - PRESSING ON (Fitzroy TV on July 5th)

Bob Dylan. The folk singer, come rock pioneer who was awarded the Nobel Prize For Literature and is currently Number 1 in the album charts at the age of 79. Bob Dylan who between 1979 and 1981 recorded three albums known as his Gospel Trilogy.  

I am very excited to be speaking about Bob Dylan in our new Fitzroy TV series Light from Rock Music. During the vows we take during ordination services in the Presbyterian church we are told not to refuse light from any quarter. In this series we are doing what I have been doing for 40 years and actively seeking light in the work of recognised rock musicians.

The first in the series was Van Morrison in which I was delighted to have Belfast songwriter Brian Houston as my guest singer. Brian recorded imaginative versions of Into The Mystic, Full Force Gale and When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God adding beats and sounds and even a snippet of John O'Donohue reading one of his benedictions. I was so pleased at the response, even from one person who said they knew nothing about rock music but found the VOLG insightful and meditative Watch Light From Van Morrison: Dreaming in God HERE 

In our Bob Dylan episode I am thrilled to have as my guest singer Chris Taylor. Chris is from San Antonio, Texas and came to fame in the Contemporary Christian Music world as lead singer of Love Coma before a catalogue of solo records that reveal the artist within, in his eclectic and creative range.

If Brian Houston was an obvious choice to sing Van Morrison, being from the same East Belfast streets, then I chose Chris because of his stunning album of Bob Dylan covers called Down a Dead End Street. That record was in my Top 10 albums of 2017 and in my review (read that HERE) I wrote of how Chris's "voice has a strong rough hue that makes traction in Dylan’s quirks. That gives him the sensitivity to eek out the yearning and deep soul searching going on." Wait until you here his covers on Sunday night!

In my commentary on Dylan I will be looking at those "Gospel years" when there is plenty of light in creed and spiritual formation. I will also, however, be looking at his short folk Civil Rights years and wondering if he was more biblically prophetic then than in his very clear Christian records. I will also be looking at the 40 years since his Christian phase and asking if there is still light to be found, right up until his brand new number 1 record Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Light From Rock Music Vol 2: Bob Dylan - Pressing On will be available on FITZROY TV from 7pm on Sunday July 5th

Followed by Light For Rock Music Vol 3: U2 - Don't Let it Go Out on July 12th

LIFE IN ALL ITS SPECTACULAR WONDER (KLA TO ARUA)

Today, I should be on a bus for 12 hours. I should have left Kampala early this morning. It is a long journey to Arua but over the past few years I have gotten to love that road. Oh there may be miles and miles here and there where I read a book or have a nap. For most of it, though, there is always intrigue out of every window. I feel the utter privilege of driving through Africa. For parts of it I listen to Paul Simon or Johnny Clegg or our own Jonny Fitch, adding to the stimulation of the visual a soundtrack to make it even more spectacular.

I am missing this journey today. Here it is, as I remember it. Travel it with me. Imagine it, in all its extravagant wonder. Please God, I will be back on this road very soon.

 

Take the Bombo road

Heading north out of KLA

Where lives are gridlock wasted

And boda bodas and car horns trap the urban beat

Give the man 2000 shillings for a New Vision

Then clear all the panoramas

To see matoke, maize and mango trees

Along the green rolling hills

To Luwero

Pay a white man price for pineapples

The best pineapples in the world

Let the juice drip down

And marvel at the height of the anthills

Smile at the field of sunflowers, as God intended them,

Under African blue

And the trees, African shaped air-conditioning.

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

The traffic has eased up now

Like this rural way of life

Up through Nakasongola

What a combination of syllables that is

On a road in the middle of Africa

Oh mercy and my oh my

Bask in every single fascinating scene

Out of every window, every moment

Every precious person

Carrying every kind of load

On bicycles or heads

Slow down around the bend

And down the hill

To Karuma Falls,

Baboons

Cheeky, entertaining and a little dangerous

And the Falls

Stunning effervescent cascade of the Nile

The Victoria Nile

Chasing itself up to Murchison for its spectacular fall.

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

After the baboons give up on the scavenge

Make a left

Alongside the edge of the National Park

The road straightens up for miles and miles

No need for McCartney’s Long and Winding Road

Less people now

But keep your eyes peeled

And there might just

If providence pokes the luck

Be a family of giraffes

Seeking the leaves

So elegant,

Their patterns, near perfectly painted by someone

Elephants,

Egrets on their back

Waving their ears to dismiss us

And the hippos,

Basking, bathing, blethering

On the edge of the Nile

The Albert Nile,

Wider, more sedate but no less beautiful

And no less that same Nile

As we cross the bridge at Pakwach

Through the human motorway service station

Boiled eggs, bottles of Stoney, chicken on a stick.

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

At last, into West Nile

Through Nebbi

Watching the changing scape of the earth

From the savannah where lions roam

To the more small rugged hills

In the dark shadows of Congolese mountains

The roads meander round, narrow

And thread through these borderlands

Of a district marginalised, maligned and misunderstood

Mud huts, thatched, in family clusters

Smoke oh so slowly spiralling into the now setting sun

Like the evensong rhythms of contented souls

Having hoed all day in their shambos

For enough, just enough,

Never enough for greed

The children still smiling

And waving at the muzungus

As if to amuse us

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

Finally,

You

Black as night

So beautifully bright

The shiniest light

In it all.

THE MYSTERY OF BADNESS & THE MYSTERY OF GOODNESS (for Fiona Donohoe)

Our entire city have been drawn into the sadness of the tragic death of Noah Donohoe.

As a community we prayed and hoped as a vast number searched for Noah after he went missing.

As a city our hearts broke at the news that his body had been found. Today, as he is buried, we all want to reach out to his mother Fiona with love and comfort and prayers.

As a pastor I find these situations very difficult. We want to find answers but as the singer David Gray once sang, "we are trying to spell what the wind can't explain". There is a mystery of badness. It is beyond us. 

What we can bring is the mystery of goodness. God never promises that there will be no mysteries. He promises, though, to be a rock and refuge in the mystery. I so pray that for Noah's mother and family today. 

 

Mysteries

Intrigue in the novel and film

But in reality

Their crashing in on our lives

Smashes our hearts to pieces

The shards blow out across communities

Cutting deep.

 

Today you grieve in the mystery

The mystery of badness

The mystery of randomness

The mystery of why you

The mystery of never being explained

Yet having to learn to live in it.

 

I believe in another mystery

The mystery of goodness

The mystery of love

The mystery of comfort

Jesus called the Holy Spirit a comforter

So, I pray for you

That in the mystery of why

In the mystery of what

You will know the mystery of how

Comfort can

Against the odds 

Reach into the depths of your broken heart

And mysteriously give you resilience

As you walk into the grief

Of the days and years to come.

 

STOCKI'S FAVOURITE 10 RECORDS OF THE FIRST HALF OF 2020

As June comes to an end here are my favourite albums of the first half of 2020. The quality of records released has been excellent, especially coming out of our own wee country.

 

1. BOB DYLAN - ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS

I haven't reviewed this one yet. Not sure I can do it justice. It is a long time since he was so lyrically engaging, socially acute and cultural aware.)

 

2. SAMMY BRUE - TEENAGE MAYHEM

From a 79 year old at number 1 to a 19 year old at number 2. Brue with the help of co-writer and producer Iain Archer has come cup with an album that respects the past and energises the present with an eclectic mix of styles. 

 

3. JASON ISBELL - REUNIONS

Between Dylan and Brue in age lies Jason Isbell, maybe the best songwriter of his generation.

 

4. THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT - HOLLYWOOD PARK

Main man Mikel Jollett's Memoir of the same name might see this accompanying record getting lost in the rightful critical acclaim of the book but this is Californian indie guitar rock at its best with perhaps the most poetic writer in that genre. 

 

5. DEACON BLUE - CITY OF LOVE

Deacon Blue get better and better. An album about Glasgow and the stories of love within it. Could be your city or mine. Crafted songs that I cannot what to see come alive live!

 

6. RAY LAMONTAGNE - MONOVISION

This might be Lamontagne's very best record. My review is coming but there are echoes of Morrison, Mitchell, Fogerty and Young. Rustic and true. Woodstock 69 revisited, not the Festival, the town.

 

7. DENISON WITMER - AMERICAN FOURSQUARE

An utterly utterly beautiful record of the gentlest mediations on small life America. 

 

8. MALOJIAN - HUMM 

Stevie Scullion teams up with Jason Lytle from Grandaddy, a perfect match for the song writing craft and instrumental layering. Sumptuous!

 

9. ARBORIST - A NORTHERN VIEW

Can a good thing come out of ballymena. Also-flippin-lutely. This is an imaginative look at Northern Ireland's place in the Brexit fragmentation. Stunning collages of sound with a Heaney-like sense of land and sky.

 

10. ANTHONY TONER - GHOST SONGS VOL 1/ THE PRESLEYS - EMBRACE

Two more Northern Irish albums. I needed to squeeze them both in. Anthony's covers record is wonder4ful in its breadth of choice and stripped back arrangements. 

The Presleys is a side project of Brian Houston's. Heavy on the blues with a spiritual underbelly and seems more set in urban America than East Belfast. Another successful musical adventure from Brian.

 

 

 

 

 

SOUL SURMISE INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT SINCLAIR ABOUT HIS EMOTIONS ALBUM

In the early 90s I discovered a young singer songwriter called Iain Archer. For a few years Iain played at everything that I had anything to do with. He went through a few band members but one remained the same - Robert Sinclair.

Robert is not a talented pianist. He is way beyond talented. He has a natural genius and that was on display night after night as he added grace note flourishes to anything Iain did. There were instrumentals when the two of them achieved musical trickery that was an amazing spectacle as well as sound.

When Iain took off to Novello Awards and Grammy nominations for his work with Snow Patrol, Jake Bugg, James Bay and most recently Sammy Brue, Robert remained at home in Bangor, still dazzling on the piano wherever he got a chance to play.

Now, almost 30 years on and Robert Sinclair has made his every own record. Emotions is a solo piano project that shows all the skills of his genius and adds a sensitivity to the different emotions we humans go through. For those of you who love instrumental music this is a winner.

I got a chance to ask Robert about how the album came about, how you name an instrumental piece of music and what he hoped for the new album.

 

So it has taken a long time to make an album. Why now?

Recording an album was a problem. I'm used to playing a lot of different styles so it would be very hard to pigeon-hole me to a certain genre. I’m not tied to jazz, blues, pop, classical, reggae, soul, pop, I just play the lot.  When I was a child I just stuck a record on and played along. 

 

And another problem was the idea of just showing off on an album filled me with dread! It’s not like me to show off - I make mistakes!  I needed a purpose for an album for the benefit of others. That’s when it all came about doing Emotions. Something people can listen to and use to reflect on days or times in their life when they are going through something. Music can do that, sometimes just better than words or anything else.

 

Tell me about where the record began? Did you set out to make an album or did the songs creep up on you and suddenly you had a record?

It’s honestly a collection of music I’ve came up with in the same way as the album’s purpose. It’s been the music I played on my own journey in life over the years. Or sometimes I’ve just been moved by something – Goodbye for example was the music I thought would be perfect for when Dr. Who had to say goodbye to Rose on the beach. I found that quite emotional. I thought – wouldn’t it be good to have a piece to use when you have to say Goodbye to somebody in some way?

I’ve always wanted to have my music used in film and television too. Maybe some day…?

 

How do you give instrumentals titles? I mean were you in Paris at midnight?

Midnight in Paris was recorded previously years ago and is a bit out of place but people liked it so I just stuck it on the album. I’ve never been to Paris at midnight so no lol! It’s just a thought as I wrote it in the early nineties - a place where you could still sit at a table in the street and drink coffee at midnight and watch the rest of the world pass by. The other titles were a lot easier and gives a much clearer link to where I was in life when I first played it.

 

Emotions is the title. When you are writing, is it about putting down the emotions you feel right there at that moment? Would you carry an emotion with you for a while and then eventually write a piece or do you sit down and say “how am I feeling now"?

Definitely the best time to play the piano I found is when I’m feeling emotional about something and, with the exception of Goodbye and Hope, I just press record and start playing. It’s just what comes out.

Hope was written out as I went – that was when my marriage started to fall apart but no matter what would happen, I always had hope. As a Christian, hope is something I hold on to a lot.  All the other tracks are just sit and play. I actually do this a lot but don’t always record it so who knows what I’ve lost! I recorded In Love and When I think of you after being with my girlfriend on different occasions. I listened to When I Think Of You the day after I recorded it in the car and I actually thought, did I play this?? Was that me? I wouldn’t have been able to play it ever again if I didn’t record it…! I actually had to write it all out for the studio to make sure I got it right lol!

 

Is the music about your own catharsis or joy or whatever emotion or do you think of an audience listening?

This album is a green light for me because it’s for other people. I find that a lot easier and acceptable. My music does comfort me and is a channel for me every day and, unless they are just being very kind, people seem to enjoy my music too. I love playing for people – it’s a very powerful God-given gift. I play at weddings and I remember once at a rehearsal, it was all going well, all great, no problems. They were just about to walk down the aisle and then I started playing the piano and after about 4 steps, the flower girl started crying and started off others. Music is powerful indeed!  (I was very professional by the way and didn't cry too!)   

 

What are your hopes for the album?

This is quite an ambition – I currently have 2 aims in life – to live long enough to see my boys married and be a grandad and to have my music heard all over the world or most of it anyway. Again, I’d love my music to be used in a film or even a TV series.

The album took about 5 hours to record and 7 months to actually get it on sale! But now it’s finally online, I hope I can sell as many tracks/albums as possible. But for other people to use. To help them. A life tool. It’s purpose.

It’s all a learning curve this album stuff... The second one will be easier… 6 months lol?