Here are just a few tunes dedicated to people I've known and lost, or those I believe are in some way needful of our care.
Corridors Of Shame
Some friends and I wrote this in 1990 when we heard about the ophans in Romania (the story is elsewhere on my site). Now this song is for Terry, Chris, and all the lost souls they sang for. Somewhere in the world this abandonment is still going on, so the song is also full of love for those suffering today.
The main inspiration for this song was going to the funeral of a dear friend and seeing how very alone his widow seemed to be. It has been extremely difficult for me to sing - on several levels.
At the end of 2008 a very good guitarist, harmonica player and realy helpful guy taught himself to play keyboard - to his friends surprise. What we didn't know, was he was also very ill. We lost him in April 2010. I decided if he could learn under those conditions, the least I could do was relearn the instruments I gave up 40 years ago.
I was going to put this in 'Collaborations', but shortly after we completed it in April 2011 we lost Rony Steelandt. He played the piano part, and his wife played the brass and sax parts. As well as an accomplished musician, Rony was the 'Kara' in the Kara-Moon website. He was always encouraging people to try new ideas, and to collaborate with other musicians.
In late spring 2011 we lost Alan (Cal) Calvert who developed the Yoshimi synthesiser. This three part improvisation is my tribute to him and uses only Yoshimi. Part two lead is his favourite 'Overdrive' and in part three 'Master Synth' is a complex sound that first proved Yoshimi's capabilities. Cal knew his time was short but never gave up.