Album Notes

This album has felt like it’s taken for ever to make! I began recording in February this year, but the business of my work as a teacher, writing for other projects, recording and just the general life stuff has meant that it has taken until August to complete. Having said that, I’m thrilled with the way it’s turned out.

It’s a slight departure from the style of my last album, ‘Fat Tuesday’s Gonna be Sweet,’ in that this is much more of a ‘band’ album. However, I’ve continued to strive toward songs which have strong melodies and lyrics which come out of my personal experience or reflect a viewpoint that I feel strongly about. Having said that, the lyrics to two of the songs: ‘Waiting for Love’ and ‘I’m the Whole Arcade’ were written by my good friend Jeff Roberts, the first being about his wife and the other about me!

When I write songs for myself I tend to migrate toward the formative musical influences of my life as well as some modern favourites, and this album is no exception. You will hear the influences of groups like ELO, Supertramp, The Beatles and The Hoosiers, as well as artists like Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Ben Folds, Sheryl Crow and Charlie Winston. I don’t apologies for this; it’s the kind of music I love to listen to, but I hope you agree that the music is still definitely ‘me.’

Lyrically however, the album flows out of my life. Songs like ‘Comfort,’ ‘Universe of Love’ and ‘Ain’t Necessarily So’ have emerged out of my experiences of religion, philosophy and politics, and in them I’m trying to say something about the world as I see it. ‘You Decide the End’ is a song born of my travels in the USA, and talk about people I’ve met, whilst ‘New York Smile’ is a song about a day I spent with an ex-pupil of mine from my days living in Oregon, who, whilst living in New York, came to visit me in Wales. The full ‘back-stories’ to my songs can be found on the lyrics page of my website if you’re interested in having more detail.

The album wouldn’t have been possible without the help of several people. I’d like to say my sincere thanks to the musicians who played on the project with me: Gerwyn Howley, Mike Ellis, Jeff Enoch, Jeff Roberts, and Rob Jones. Gerwyn also sorted a huge amount of the technical stuff production wise and put the album cover together, so big thanks to him for that too. From the start of the writing process I owe a great debt of thanks to Jeff Roberts, whose…’attention to detail’ has kept me honest and been a huge help in creating arrangements for the songs. The cover art is the work of a wonderful friend of mine, Lynne Oakes. Lynne is a professional artist from Maryland and more of her work can be seen on her website, and there’s a link to it on my website’s LINKS page. My thanks go to her for allowing me to use her work, but also for her great friendship and encouragement.

I hope that you like what you hear, and if you decide to buy this cd or download it from iTunes, then my thanks go to you. I hope you find in the songs something that speaks to you; something that resonates with ‘where you’re at,’ and that you get as much pleasure out of listening to the tracks as I had in writing them.

Best wishes,

Stephen J Preston.