Turned out nice again, hasn't it?
I'm happy to announce that I have finished my NaSoAlMo album; 10 tracks, 29:05 total time. I'll post the entire album, in high quality audio (non-MP3) sometime this week. For now, here's an MP3 of track #9 Noughts And Crosses. (Scroll down about halfway for the blue link.)
NaSoAlMo allows you to include one cover, and naturally I wanted to do a George Formby song, since I consider him the source of everything that I love about the last 40 years of British music. Formby was a direct descendant of music hall (literally) and went on to influence skiffle, which begat the British invasion sound, paving the way for Paul McCartney and Ray Davies and then on to XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, John Wesley Harding and beyond. Even today the lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys has a vocal style that's a dead ringer for Formby's.
The song I chose was featured in the 1938 movie I See Ice, which Karla and I just watched last night. (I gave her a collection of all 20 Formby films on DVD for her birthday.) Here's the original version. My version is a little less jazzy and more like a skiffle song. I used a 30s radio effect on the vocal to get a bit of a throwback sound, but the arrangement is definitely not of that era. By the way, I have no idea why the N is silent. That's the way Formby sings it and I have to assume he's correct.
NaSoAlMo allows you to include one cover, and naturally I wanted to do a George Formby song, since I consider him the source of everything that I love about the last 40 years of British music. Formby was a direct descendant of music hall (literally) and went on to influence skiffle, which begat the British invasion sound, paving the way for Paul McCartney and Ray Davies and then on to XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, John Wesley Harding and beyond. Even today the lead singer of the Arctic Monkeys has a vocal style that's a dead ringer for Formby's.
The song I chose was featured in the 1938 movie I See Ice, which Karla and I just watched last night. (I gave her a collection of all 20 Formby films on DVD for her birthday.) Here's the original version. My version is a little less jazzy and more like a skiffle song. I used a 30s radio effect on the vocal to get a bit of a throwback sound, but the arrangement is definitely not of that era. By the way, I have no idea why the N is silent. That's the way Formby sings it and I have to assume he's correct.