May and June are Judgement Months!
My work is cut out - and it's not recording!
Congratulations to all nominees for this coming August's ISSA Awards in Atlanta. In a couple of days we'll know the finalists in each category, based on fan voting in April.
The two awards on the left are my previous ISSA Awards for International Album of the Year 2024 (Silver - Stories in Time) and 2025 (Gold - And on with the Show).
The Gold last year means my role in the Awards is now very different - that of being part of the judging team for the 2026 Awards. It's a large team of many previous Gold winners, so my work for the next two months is listening to the many entries in all categories.
The standard is incredibly high, but I'm developing my assessment approach - and will be interested to see how it holds up in practice! That will form part of my presentation 'Spotlight on ISSA Judging' which will be part of the ISSA Summit for the two days before the awards.
Hope to see you in Atlanta!
An Elephant in the Room
New album released 30 October 2025
This new album has been written mainly since January this year.
The topics for quite a few of the songs were suggested by a songwriting circle I'm in. It's interesting when someone else suggests a topic that you probably wouldn't have thought of yourself - it kind of frees you from any preconceptions.
Take 'Money Buys You Freedom'...I would never have thought of writing a song on this topic, but there it is. My immediate thought when I saw the suggestion was...'well, does it?' So off I went on a new trail of discovery. Many of the songs have that surprise element to them and this gave me plenty of scope in lyrics and sound to express the sentiment of the songs.
Available on major streaming and download sites, I feel that it really reflects many of my songwriting influences over the years - I hope you enjoy listening!
Atlanta 2025
what a great day!
It was a great idea for the International Singer Songwriters Association to hold a summit before the awards ceremony. This gave us plenty of time to meet other artists and learn more about the business, as well as socialising and jamming!
To come away with a top award was the icing on the cake, especially as I had recorded and mixed the whole album myself, with a little help from my wife Sue adding some vocals.
Here are a few memories of the event.
A CHRISTMAS (SONG) STORY
Anatomy of My 2024 Christmas CAROL!
There are a few Christmas Songs appearing, so thought you might be interested in the story of mine for this year:-
In May I wrote a piano tune.
In August I saw that a few of my contemporaries were recording their Christmas songs, so I wrote some Christmas lyrics. It sounded quite hymnal so I kept the lyrics with a more general message with occasional references to Christmas. It didn't feel like one of those 'In Your Face' Christmas songs!
In October I recorded the instrument tracks, wrote the harmonies and asked a couple of friends (plus my wife Sue) to contribute some vocals (and guitar).
I asked our local church to ask around for singers to form an ensemble to go on the track. In November they organized for some of the community to get together in the Church Hall to record the chorus and bridge. I'd never recorded 25 people before, but did it with the help of a couple of Zoom portable mics. Then spent two days mixing everything!
At the same time, the Church had started an appeal to renovate the church bells - some are almost 400 year old! I suggested that the new 'carol' could be part of the appeal - the first song that the community has done.
December - the song will be launched at the church on 1 December and we are hoping the press pick up on the story. They seem to like the combination of an original song for the community plus the bell renovation (also for the community), particularly at Christmas time. So I've been busy preparing for radio interviews and press releases etc.
It was a bit fortuitous that the bell appeal came along at the same time as the song, but together they have definitely given a story bigger than the sum of the parts. I suppose the message is - keep plugging away at an idea if you believe it has legs and make the most of the opportunities when they arise!
You'll see the promo vid in the Videos section and you can find the whole song on my Bandcamp site if you'd like to hear how the song develops.
MOST OF 2024
Most of this year has been recording and learning some new mixing techniques! I recorded up until April, when my Stories in Time album was released. Then it was back to intensive mixing courses (on video) that got me to re-look at want I was doing in that area and try to do it better.
The result is a new album of songs that I wrote a while back with a good friend and bandmate Drew Thomas. In the days when I played many gigs, Drew used to turn up with lyrics and I put them to music. We never had the chance to record them properly at the time, so I have done them now on his behalf.
I say that because Drew passed away a while back, so I thought it was fitting to revisit the songs and record them for posterity. Drew had a big stage presence - he was an excellent actor as well - and his lyrics reflected that, each being a big storyline that you could imagine on stage. So the only possible title was …And on with the Show… !! His long term partner Claire is a graphic designer, so I asked her to do the cover art.
The tracks are going up on sites as we speak, but I'll plan a more structured launch later in October once the dust has settled on the Stories in Time album.
SECOND HALF OF 2023
I've had my head down recently pulling new songs together for an album I hope to release around March 2024. Also, I've been testing out a few new recording techniques so see what I can improve on - all of which takes up rather large chunk of time. I hope it'll all be worth it once we get to the final stages of the new album.
Which brings me back to where I started on Social Media - Album or Multiple Singles…. I'll put it out front that I'm very much an album person. I like the challenge of putting together a group of songs into an ‘experience’, finding similarities but also differences which enhance the whole listening experience. For instance, the complex multi-tracked song followed by a simple guitar plus vocal song arrangement. However, some album tracks can often get lost if the whole thing is released in one go. Plus, platforms will often only use your one album cover for all tracks so songs can lose their individuality and audience attention.
I'm not sure there's an ideal, but I have seen quite a few cases of ‘albums’ now only having 6 three-minute tracks so ending up around the 20 minute mark. That would have been unheard of in the heyday of vinyl and even cds, unless you were called The Beach Boys! Any six-track album in my youth would still usually have been 40 minutes of music, usually with extended instrumentals.
So I keep working towards smaller albums - my last one, Circles and Seasons' was 8 tracks and I released it as 8 singles on Spotify and a full album on download sites. The track below, ‘Summer Days’ did very well on Spotify, but I suspect it might not have done quite so well as an album song. I tried to link all the singles together with a theme as you'll see in the pictures. However, my musical instincts keep pulling me towards 10-12 track albums as opposed to putting out two shorter albums. Let's see what happens with my forthcoming album release!
First half of 2023
My collection of World Songwriting Awards top ten placement certificates grows with my first single of 2023, Share and Share Alike (see below!). I headed up to a recording studio near Durham (UK) to complete this in March and work with my good friend Franky Gibbon. He asked a couple of friends, Brian and Irene Hume, to supply vocals, and another friend Jimmy Smith to add some guitar. Brian and Irene formed the band Prelude, who charted with a version of After the Goldrush in both the UK and USA, so it was a real privilege to have them on board.
Collaborations of all descriptions can be highly beneficial, if not essential, in the music business, and my second single release (this week - June 9th) is one between music and art. Although I did everything myself on the musical side of Love in the City, longstanding colleague Jacqueline Jax offered the artwork for the cover, which perfectly captures the sentiments of the song. Thanks Jacqueline for helping create the total package of Love in the City!
I'm preparing for a live concert in September where I'll be playing all original material on either piano or 12 String. To help, I've been heading off to various Open Mic venues near where I like and trying out many of my songs to a live audience. It's really helpful as you get a very quick idea of what works live and what doesn't. In the studio with overdubbing etc, I can get to where I want to with most of my songs. But when it's just you and one instrument, it can be a different story! Anyway, more on that later in the year as preparations continue.
Cheers and many thanks, as ever, for your support.
