Louise and her sensational band had yet another amazing visit to Manly in October 2016 to perform on the very windy but wonderful Oceanfront stage to close the 2016 Jazz Festival. A record audience witnessed the fun with Louise adding some fantastic new songs to her versatile set – most ably assisted, as always, by Peter Northcote (guitar), Warren Trout (drums), Nick Sinclair (bass), Scott Aplin (keys) and delicious guest vocals and a duet or two from Glenn Whitehall & Rachelle Medley.
My love of Joni’s music is no secret to all who know me and I have been supremely blessed to take part in some amazing concerts celebrating her music over the last few decades.
It all started back in 1999 when a group of us, led by the gorgeous Rachel Gaudry decided to put on a show at The Basement in Sydney. It was definitely a labour of love, as is the intricacy of Joni’s work. A true collaborative effort between all musicians and singers made our very first show one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had on stage. Apparently over 100 people were turned away that night from The Basement doors, but those who were inside that room celebrated as one. We quickly followed with a return booking and then revisited the project again in 2004.
Our very first line-up, featuring Rachel Gaudry, Sarah McGregor, Tania Bowra, Robyn Dunne, Kristen Cornwell Karen Jacobsen and myself, have scattered far and wide in our musical careers and lives since then but those performances truly cemented a bond that holds us all close to this day.
Then in 2009, with Spiritworks and Jeff Lewis as our financial wings, we toured the country with “Joni: a tribute to the legendary Joni Mitchell.” With Rachel as Music Director, our line-up included Katie Noonan, Wendy Matthews, Kristin Berardi, Tania Bowra, and Virna Sanzone and an awe-inspiring 12-piece band. Singing with these amazing girls and playing to true Joni fans on a much larger scale was something I will never forget. And I managed to remember all 7 million verses of Come In From The Cold!!!
So why the post after all this time? Well thanks to Facebook our promo pic and advertising sent us all back down memory lane … and has prompted Rachel and I to start thinking that we have probably lapsed in our 5 yearly celebration plan of Joni’s music… and that would never do! 7 years …. How did that happen?
Check out some memorabilia and pics below.
Bill Risby and I were commissioned to write, perform and produce this track for Plan Australia – these advertisements ran in a cinemas around Australia.
The wonders of the internet helped me develop a relationship with Japanese producers “Light for Lines”. They emailed me a track and asked me to come up with a melody and lyrics for it. Sort of a Cafe del Mar kind of vibe. I love trying to work in different genres and I hope to get to do more of this kind of thing in the future.
This session was such great fun – I remember us all having a great laugh at my Macy Gray approach to this vocal. This is Sam Hawksley, Bill Risby and I getting together to write and record a pop song for Sam’s catalogue. We used to do these sessions quite regularly before Sam took off to Nashville. Always a marvellous and hilarious adventure musically – just listening to this track makes me smile. I have never performed this live but I am going to … one day…. that’s a threat 🙂
I have amassed quite a body of recordings with a very talented songwriter/producer called Graham Hunter – it’s a “he writes ’em and I sing ’em” kind of relationship. He comes from a dance music background and I have thoroughly enjoyed the chance to get to sing this kind of genre. This one is my favourite!
A fantastic afternoon of writing and recording with Brooke McClymont (The McClymonts) and DNA’s Anthony Egizii, this is demo produced by Anthony and sung by Brooke (you can hear me in the background somewhere on some bv’s). Thanks to the lovely Maree Hamblion for the hook up!
The song has had a few name changes, one being “The Right Side Of The Road” – ah, what’s in a song title?
The young girls from the Life Changing Experiences Foundation Sister 2 Sister programme have adopted this as their theme song and recorded it with Sony’s Amy Pearson. Lovely to see that songs with inspirational lyrics find their way to their rightful places sometimes.
The anonymity of singing on library albums is a marvellous and freeing thing but I so love this track that I want to shout it to the world! I was lucky enough to sing lead vocal on this – just one of the many amazing tracks that Brydon Stace has written, played all instruments, produced (and usually sings all parts) over the years for his library albums. I had a bit of a hand in the lyrics but it is mostly Brydon’s handywork.
This is the demo for a track that was written with St Paul Peterson (The Time – yes, Prince’s The Time), Rob Arthur (Five For Fighting) and Brydon Stace. Paul was in town touring with his brother Ricky Peterson and had a little time to spare so his fabulous Australian- based manager, Neil Richards, put us together. Paul and Rob had done some skeleton work on the song already and we finished it off in one very fun afternoon together. It’s just a good little pop song that hopefully some young teen star will pick up one day. Was so great to work with St Paul – funny, warm and ridiculously talented!
This is the demo of the song that Anthony Callea recorded for his first album. It was a double platinum debut and went straight to Number One. It was my first ever major label cut so this was the turning point for me where I didn’t just write songs for myself. I actually wrote the song specifically for Anthony with the help of the very talented Vince Pizzinga. This recording is the demo, kindly sung by the gorgeous Brooke McClymont. You can hear Anthony’s version on iTunes.