footie's blog

I spent this afternoon with an old friend, Pete Dyson, who now owns Studio West recording studios in San Diego. He was playing host to 30 school kids (and their teachers, parents and assorted hangers-on) who were making a charity record in aid of the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund. The whole event was the brainchild of music teacher, Joretta Harris, who had organized the whole event, written the song, laid down the backing tracks with some musician friends in Atlanta, and organized for with the 30 or so parents of the children for them to be there.
The kids - a little wary at first - soon got the hang of studio technique - on the first few takes they were singing as though the whole of San Diego needed to hear them - but soon they relaxed into it, let the mikes do their work, and really started enjoying it. Darryl, the engineer, was a real star, capturing all the takes, and splicing the best bits of each take into one coherent final product. KUSI News also paid us a visit, and after spending several hours filming the proceedings managed to air a two minute slot on the 10pm news. Pete managed to get in a few sound bites about why he was doing this "for the kids" (and the free publicity) - you could even see me behind the sound engineer in one of the shots.

I'm not sure when it is due to be release - but watch out for it zooming up the charts shortly !