This series of blogs (11-14) chronicle my thoughts, whims and history of every song on my newest album “Can’t Get Enough” which took six years to make. I was thrilled to work closely with musical geniuses to make this album a reality. Super producer/engineer/mix artist Vitamin D masterfully led us and was in charge of the overall sonic quality, production and mixing of the album. Music superman and multi-instrumentalist Donyea Goodman’s production skills are featured on over half the tracks on the album. Super producers Jake One and Malay contributed as well.
HOLD ON TO YOU (Vitamin D version)
This version was created and recorded about two years after the initital Donyea Goodman version. When I wrote this song I heard a Motown vibe for it. Vitamin D was answering that call. It was a treat to watch it be remade. I played the bells and vibes on it. The vocals are the same as the Donyea version so it is like a remix. It was important to me that both producers had their say with this song. I love both versions. This is actually my favorite song that I have written in my career as a songwriter. So I welcome any other incarnations of this song from other producers as well. I love the message and how it got organized onto paper. It doesn’t always come out so good.
Herman Brown, Vitamin D’s father played the rhythm guitar on this track. Vitamin played most of the percussion instruments live. Geoffrey Castle played all the strings on the song. Unfortunately this was the first song I got him on. I didn’t realize he would provide such a great service. We were almost done with the album when we discovered him. I promptly hired him to play on "Where We Are". Needless to say I would have had him on more of the songs if I had known before that we could do it. My cousin Len Hammond plays percussion during the solo break. Great stuff. A family reunion. (That reminds me I haven’t talk to him in a while) Gerald Turner came in on the yummy bass.
Like all the others we ad a lot of fun making this one. If you listen closely we left in Geoffrey Castle’s laugh at the end of the session. It was perfect and hearty. He loved it, we loved, we printed it!!! Stay tuned for the next blog. i promise i will post another by next week!! Stay tuned for Sketches for Album 4 coming up as soon as I get through this series.
Tags: critical sun recordings, darrius, darrius willrich, donyea goodman, sweet urban soul