| Michael
Canfield & Rhythm Section Africa - Project Diary Click
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About 10 months ago, after a sabbatical from band-leading that had lasted almost 10 years, I decided it was time to have my own band again. I had actually taken a complete break from performing at all that had lasted almost 3 years. In retrospect, I see that this actually was an important and necessary hiatus as I had been performing for more than 4 decades and was feeling flat and uninspired -generally burnt out on gigging and disillusioned with the music business. Anyway, about a year prior to starting the new band I began playing as a sideman in various projects and noticing that I was having fun again. But not as much fun as I had leading my own band the last time I did it back in the 90's. |
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Plus, there was all this material coming through the writing channel as well some good songs that Angus Rose and I had written during the last creative spurt back around 2001. Plus, around a year go I was in Dubai with Dan Patlanski's band and found a long sought-after copy of a favourite Buddy Rich album, "Mercy Mercy". I was surprised when reading the liner notes that Buddy was exactly the same age as I am now (52) when he recorded this classic. It gave me hope that there still might be enough vitality, relevance and ability left in the old warhorse to go for it one more time. So I called Angus, contacted Bert Askis who played bass in George Worthmore's band and together with Michael Slavin on guitar we started rehearsing. It felt really good. Everything was just falling together in a very natural and spontaneous way. We did our first show at Tanz Café in Bryanston on August 9th 2005 and it went well. At the time, I figured that this would be an engaging side project that might do a show or two a month and that would be that. However, it seems that the gods of the band universe had other ideas! Right from the start, long before we were 'tight' and while we were all still muddling through the arrangements, it became clear that the energy around Rhythm Section Africa was special. The early reviews were good and audience response extremely positive and enthusiastic. More and more shows were offered and a following grew. As the band matured as a performing entity it was apparent that this project had a future and the songs were strong enough that we should record them. Gus and I decided that we would move into preproduction on a little lap-top demo studio I set up in a spare room at my house. We're in that middle of that process right now. Which is probably a good thing, as it appears that we will be moving into (multiple SAMA-Award winner) Peter Pearlson's studio to begin tracking for a Christmas CD release on 1 June; have just entered into an artist's management contract with a new company headed by former Gallo exec Lana-Jane Pike; are in negotiations with a well-known, very successful record producer and exploring options with various respected local record labels. I find this very cool! That brings us right up to date and to the purpose behind this article. The other day while at Marshall Music I had a conversation with Michelle at sadrummer.com. The idea came to me that it might be interesting to fans of the website to read an online diary about the project that we would publish on the site. I thought (selfishly) that it would be great promo for the upcoming CD and (less selfishly) that maybe others could learn from the experience. So, here we are. As and when events happen on this journey of discovery that is any creative project, I'll publish them as unvarnished as possible. Of course, when required, names will be changed to protect the innocent! I'll try to share as much information on both the artistic and business process of recording a new act and launching it onto the (hopefully) world stage. Hope you will come along for the ride. And if you want to correspond with me directly please don't hesitate to contact me on canfield@icon.co.za. Here we go…… Click
Here for CHAPTER 2 | |
