Motus Mentis

I’ve previously mentioned the musical retreat I enjoy each September in the far-flung Isles of Shoals. I get together with an eclectic assortment of musicians (both pros and civilians), and we have a fine time as the house band for all the people enjoying Star Island‘s final conference of the year.

With this global panic trapping us all at home, we thought it would help to pass the time if we worked on a collaborative recording project. Thanks to the magic of Al Gore’s “Internet”, we can easily pass audio files around, and so members of our little team have been recording their respective tracks and sending them on to the project’s nerve-center: Knob and Kettle Studio, Wellfleet, MA (which happens to be a room in my basement).

Our first effort was one of the crowd-pleasers we play each year: the Joe Cocker arrangement of the Beatles classic A Little Help From My Friends.

That’s Kemp Harris on lead vocal. The guitars are by my boyhood friends Carl Sturken and Joe Abelson. Ray Castoldi (music director at Madison Square Garden, and organist for the New York Mets) is playing the Hammond B3. On drums is Gary Lue, and on bass & congas we have Al Hospers. Ray’s wife April played tenor, while Joe’s two sons Rico and Max, and Al’s friend Michelle Boggs, rounded out the horn section. The high female part in the background vocals is Christie Moran, and the female vocal ad-libs are Erin Dow.

My own contributions: percussion, most of the background vocals, editing and mixing.

Have a listen.