My wife's choir, Exultate Chamber Singers, had their annual fundraiser. The theme was right up my alley: London Calling, celebrating English music.
Most of our favourite music is British, so we spent a lot of time choosing which song we would play. Both being huge David Bowie fans, we ran through a huge chunk of his catalogue. Nothing felt right. What about Pulp? We tried Common People (my preference) and Disco 2000 (Kate's preference), before deciding on Romeo & Juliet by Dire Straits. The song had a more varied dynamic, and seemed more suitable for the intended audience. My skills are pretty far behind Mark Knopfler's, so it took some work to get it just right. But I think we did.
I really enjoyed Andre Heywood's version of Your Song by Elton John. I wish I could have given it more attention, but I was busy tuning my guitar in the back room as we were following him.
Kate did a fantastic job singing such a beautiful song. And I had an added bonus: This was the first time that my classic 1974 Fender Telecaster Custom got stage time. I don't know why it has always taken second place to my other instruments - it's my favourite, with lots of personality and shaping from it's previous owner touring it for over 30 years. But it was perfect for Romeo & Juliet, nothing else would give me that pretty, twangy, airy tone...
A few audience members told me afterwards that we should start performing more as a duo. So that might be a future project...
Here's a photo from the performance:
And just to push it, here's a YouTube link to my favourite version of the song:
No comments:
Post a Comment