The title track was written especially for the live recording and recorded in our home studio. My friend Gary Osborne who wrote the lyrics to Amoureuse loves writing with a title in mind so I remembered this and wrote this short and a bit tongue in cheek lyric in a blues style, and we recorded it late one night after a bottle of wine. Steve Brown who owns my management company has great creative ideas and he thought we should rough up the recording, make it sound like an old scratched record and add a night club type audience to it and I really like the result.

One and Only Love

The second track on the album and the first one Carmelo and I wrote together. It was inspired in part by the brilliant ballads that Bonnie Raitt has recorded in the recent years, its dramatic and romantic and good to sing live as it starts acappella (just voice) for the first verse and you need to stay in key for when the acoustic guitar comes in. When I sing this song I think of some of the things we all crave at times, the one and only love, but I also think of my Mum and Dad when I sing some of the lines.  click here to listen


Carey

What can I say, I really like this Joni Mitchell song. Part of me thinks I shouldn't cover her because she's so good, but for the live album it was fun, and the more I sing it, the better I get. It is possible to make a song your own if you don't just copy the original.

Here For All Time

I met a young singer songwriter in Los Angeles a few years ago called Julianna Raye who went off and wrote this lyric to my melody after I told her about a childhood experience I had . I was amazed at how she did that and expressed the story totally in the lyric.

Miss Punta Blanca

This is a Jane Siberry song. She is a fine Canadian singer-songwriter and we put this song in the set one night because its funny and very different from anything else I was singing at the time. The first time I sang it on the tour I was feeling my way and I remember the audience being a bit bemused by it. Needless to say it has to be sung with real confidence because its so quirky and so Jane Siberry. The song is about a girl observing another girl win a beauty contest - I wonder where the idea evolved?

Takes My Breath Away

I heard this track in America on an album by a duo called Tuck and Patti,. I liked it and its nice to sing. I have worked a lot on not using vibrato especially on this type of song. It can sound too straight and MOR. Patti has a jazz sound I think and it works well on this pop song. I think I got a good response live when I performed this

See Me Through

This track is in minor key which gives it a bluesy feel. Its about a brief encounter, a liason, hence the title Your Love Gonna See Me Through.

Heal Me Now

Carmelo and I perform this song a lot and it has undergone a lot of development as we recorded it for our studio album Where Rivers Meet in a different style and setting. It started out as a rock song and has really developed and become more about spirit and healing. If you happen to listen to both albums ( Almost Naked and Where Rivers Meet) you will hear the difference in treatment.

Amoureuse

What can I say about this song! It changed my life back in the seventies and I enjoyed singing parts of it in french and also performing it with just voice and guitar. On tour its good because people know it and we do perform a lot of material that people are not so fimiliar with — so it works well.

You Won't See Me Crying

This is one of the first songs I wrote with Carmelo and it has somewhat of a country feel to it. Take me to heart like you used to do, Come sit by my side and tell me the truth, The line that we crossed is too fine to see, None of us know when it happens, Love has no guarantees, So I declare, I'll be the only one again but you won't see me crying no more when you're gone, I'll be the only one but you won't see me crying from now on.!

Blueberry Hill

When I was a kid in the fifties in Bradford, my older brother introduced me to music with artists like Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Fats Domino and loads of early rock and roll stars who really coloured my view of the world. I remember this record very well and we played around with it on our first voice and guitar tour which as I said earlier led us to work with Vanessa Mae (who by the way was very nice) and hence this album.

Calling All Angels

Last but not least a brilliant song from Jane Siberry which I really love. I think you should listen to this song if you get the chance and see what you think. click here to listen