”Good day, dearest ‘OwlHeads’”. I pray you are all preening your feathers magnificently. I offer you here today Episode 43 of my songwriter podcast series … where my song vaults and archives are again raided for my rare demos, odds and sods and sonic misfits.
This month’s show features a little gem I concocted with the “Go West” boys, Richard Drummie and Peter Cox; I do remember quite special studio sessions with those lads.
I’ll play you a song I’m extremely proud of that I demoed with Earth, Wind and Fire’s majestic vocalist Philip Bailey at the legendary EWF studios, “The Complex”, in LA. Great memories of working with a true gentleman of soul music.
And I’ll play you a demo of another amazing singer that I worked and wrote with, the peerless John Waite when he was leading the rock band “Bad English”. It’s a spontaneous, raw, one-day home demo that, I have to say, gives the actual final master recording a damn good run for its money!
There’ll be a truly vintage retro playback of one of the first demos I ever wrote and recorded with my songwriter partner Brian Fairweather back in London in the late, hazy 1970s … a mono analog 2 track Revox recording of a song eventually recorded (if you can believe this) by the British “The Kenny Everett Video Show” dance troupe, “Hot Gossip”. I’m being very brave here, because the demo is as homemade and sonically compromised as can be imagined. Yet, weirdly, I still think Huey Lewis and the News back in the day could have done a great job with it! 😳
I’ll play you a song I wrote with the quite brilliant artist, Paul Delph ... probably not known to many of you, but a truly gifted talent who is sadly missed. A very bright future was predicted for this virtuoso, until he was tragically cut down by AIDS. I even wanted him to join my band and tour with me during the “House of Stone and Light” days. The demo I’ll play you showcases his extraordinary potential.
I’ll spend a little time expounding upon my early life when I couldn’t work out what I wanted to be before I became a musician and songwriter. It’s a crazy story with many wild turns and false starts … I even nearly became a chef!!! God forbid. 🫣
I can’t resist playing you an outtake from the recording sessions for my solo album, “In the Temple of the Muse”. This track that I wrote with lyricist Bernie Taupin never made it onto the actual album, but it remains for me a very funky and unique piece. It features the outstanding live drumming of Jimmy Copley.
And to round things off, I’ll play you a brand new track from a future album of mine that I’m presently developing. It speaks of a time in the past when people saw the land and nature as the “King”, and to harm the land was tantamount to wounding the Royal Sovereign. Ahh, now there’s a concept we should all still embrace today, I fancy.
So please join me for the bumpy ride, thy noble “OwlHeads”.
Let’s have some fun.
Martin🦉
