Vintage Vocal Swing

This episode we’re stepping into a time machine to the 1940s! 

Join us as we dive into our Vintage Vocal Swing album, a collaboration with internationally renowned composer and vocalist Joanna Forbes L’Estrange. 

We walk through the whole process, from getting the brief to recording at Abbey Road studios while dressed up in full vintage gear.

Stick around until the end to see the brilliant 40s-style music video for ‘You Are’, featuring our fabulous costumes and Jeff’s even more fabulous dancing!

#podcast #musicpodcast #composerpodcast #productionmusic #librarymusic #musicindustrypodcast #filmmusic #vocals #vintagevocals #swingvocals #musicindustry #filmcomposer

Transcript

David

Jeff Megan. 

Jeff

David Tobin

David

Two composers, two continents.

Jeff

Welcome back.

David

We're going to be talking this week about a project from 2017. This was, it wasn't called this originally, but it became known as Vintage Vocal Swing.

Jeff

Yeah. I think it started out just as like Andrews Sisters – 

David

Close Harmony, Andrews Sisters, beautifully tied notes. And we should stop right at the get-go I think, and mention this. Halt. This was not a two-handed project. 

Jeff

No.

David

So tell us about our collaborator, Jeffrey Megan.

Jeff

We were collaborating with the lovely Joanna Forbes L’Estrange.

David

Beautifully done.

Jeff

Thank you very much. She is a London singer, she was a member of the Swingle Singers, she is a composer, she is a choral director and writer, she is a session vocalist.

David

All around musicians.

Jeff

All around wonder woman.

David

And yeah, so we were tasked to write together and it was interesting because a lot of the time when we do collaborations, very often I always feel that there's, we're bringing in specialists rather than just another writer who is throwing ideas, initial ideas to us. That wasn't the case with this because ideas were going both ways rather than that.

Jeff

Yeah absolutely.

David

It's not something we've done that much. We've done a bit of it.

Jeff

It’s hard to say yeah.

David

But so let's talk about the let's start with the process.

Jeff

Oh, back to the process. The idea came from Joanna, Jo, we’re gonna call her Jo from now on everyone just keep up.

David

And we haven't done the brief, by the way.

Jeff

Okay, do the brief.

David

Okay, so the brief said, well, kind of mentioned it, Andrew's Sisters, 40s close harmony, female vocals. So this is jazz rhythms and horns. Sort of Benny Goodman-esque, know, clarinet leads where the harmonies are very close. But the brief, I think we were given a couple of tunes if memory serves.

Jeff

Yeah so Don’t Sit Under The Appletree, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,

David

That’s easy for you to say! Yeah, but those two were given and that really told us pretty much all we to know. We knew what we needed to know. So brief done.

Jeff

Brief done.

Jeff

Thanks for joining us.

David

So let's go process.

Jeff

So I mean much like the other things I sent ideas to you, then you’d worked on them to send to her, or she would send them to us. And probably y0ou would tweak them and then we’d all listen to them. I don’t k now it was all manner of going around the horn.

David

And actually that's what I loved about it is that, and what I love about so much about often with these types of things is that you're making a process that you haven't necessarily made. We didn't say this is how we're going to do it. We just started.

Jeff

Yeah, I mean generally that’s the conversation with any of the collaborators, right? Well let’s just throw some ideas together, we throw some to you, you throw some to us, and we’ll see how it all pans out. I do recall sending some ideas to Jo and being like Hey, just snippets, and then she needed a bridge or a chorus, so you know, just vibes I think. There were one or two or maybe three that we did that kinda thing with.

David

And I think we were going to do a demo dive. We were going to talk about, I think when we were chatting off air earlier, we were talking about picking a song each and we've also played Pretend You’re Jo and pick a song for Jo as well. And we've done that. And I think that will become clear how ideas were kind of thrown around and passed because we'll be able play a little bit of those. So tell me, Jeffrey, pick a song. What song would you like to take?

Jeff

I choose a song called Stop The Search. 

David

And so what was it about Stop The Search that really got to you?

Jeff

Stop The Search, it had like a rockabilly swing thing going 

David

Sing for me Jeffrey.

Jeff

You know it started with that kind of thing. The other part I liked about it was after we wrote it, threw the ideas around, and we were doing the demo, it ended up with the girls singing. So three-part harmony, so three gals singing, and then the second vgerse was you and I singing like a rebuttal verse to their verse. 

And then in the end, I can’t remember if the third time around if we were all sining - 

David

Well, and you've got those crazy interjections. So one of us would be going, “My mother always said”

Jeff

“Mhmm”

David

And there was a lot of that going on.

Jeff

I think probably the inspiration for this was Sisters in White Christmas, where they…

And they kind of do the interjections with each other through the song.

David

Doing that when you do it with three great swingle singers, it sounds great with a band when it's recorded.

Jeff

Say that four times fast.

David

This is the man that can't say three-part pod. Anyway we'll go with that. But doing it on a demo when we're just doing all the voices, all of them. Yeah, I mean, that's ridiculous.

Jeff

It’s just fun.

David

When you have to send that to somebody to get sign-off, and they think you're losing it just a little bit.

Jeff

Or for Jo to hear that and be like, “these guys…”

David

What are they doing!

Jeff

Why am I working with these guys?

So how about you David, what song did you choose?

David

Well, I'm missing a hat for my song because I've chosen a Christmas song. Mine is Hurry Santa. Mhm, yeah there you go. There are so many reasons why I love that song. One of the reasons was because anybody that is a regular watcher of this podcast, and first of all, thank you if you are, will know that I have a permanent bug up my whatsit about intros.

And I got sent an intro that was a bell ding dong ding dong ding ding ding ding ding kind of thing.

We worked it round and round and around and around. And in the end I said, no, there's just something missing. It's not quite long enough and it maybe just reminds me of other things I've heard somewhere. I don't really know what, but it was just something. So we redid it. And then I said, wouldn't it be great instead of it being instruments, if each vocalist took one instrument, one of the notes, like they were the bells. So everybody went, ding, dong. 

Jeff

Yeah it was passed around between the girls.

David

Yeah. And we just had a bunch of fun doing that.

And then I remember the other thing that made me choose this is I'd got the idea from you, you'd written this fully formed song, lyrics, the whole idea that everything was there. And I thought, I don't even know what I’m gonna do.

Jeff

I don’t like it.

David

Yeah, why are we doing this?! Actually, what I thought was, what do I add to this process? And then I thought, okay, well, the first thing I could do is fully write the vocal arrangement so like completely done.

But wouldn't it be fun while Jeff's asleep? Obviously being five, six hours behind me, depending on what time of the year we were doing this.

Jeff

Two Composers Two Continents, remember.

David

Wouldn't it be fun if I just sang all of the parts to all of it, sent it back to him and say “Something like this, sir? I took the liberty.”

But actually, in fairness to me, I also then didn't like the middle eight. That's happened to us before. This is a recurring theme. So I rewrote that and sang that.

Jeff

That was quite a big, I’d forgotten that and you were playing just a snipped of it earlier and I’m curious to hear it, we didn’t play the full thing, because I don’t remember it at all.

David

There was a whole second section that I'm sure it was great. I'm sure it was absolutely perfect. 

Jeff

So good we needed to cut it.

David

Yeah, it just wasn't for me. How do you say that nicely? But I sang the lot. I sang all of the parts, sang a bassline, shipped it back so that by the time, and I remember actually feeling a little time pressured because I really wanted it done before you got up. So just say, you know, like you're paddling like mad underneath, but looking like you're just serenely.

And I, you know, I'm not stopping for lunch now. I don't need to go to the toilet. I'm going to go to get this done. So did that, sent it off, but then sending it to Jo. I just remember feeling that because Jo has got a studio with her husband, and they recorded, I remember recorded the vocals on the demo cause obviously we've got to get agreement. Getting it back –

Jeff

It sounded so good.

David

Oh my goodness.

Jeff

Actually one of the best parts about everything on this album is that she of course recorded the 3 part harmony for all of the girl’s parts and it was just like, wow. Do we need to do this in the studio? It was so good. But of course…

David

Well, and we'll get to the recording process and who we recorded with because it was one of our funnest sessions ever. But let's pretend you're Jo.

Jeff

Okay

David

Hey Jo.

Jeff

Hi David.

David

This is weird. Jo, if you're watching, I am so sorry that you should be sat there really, but hey, we're here. So pick a song.

Jeff

I’m going to choose the lovely song that pretty much I wrote, called ‘You’. 

David

So we should say at this point that Jo sent us a demo of this song set at the piano. Just piano vocal.

Jeff

It was gorgeous.

David

Fully formed just like you would expect. Everything, there were lyrics that didn't need... I don’t think we tweaked a great deal.

Jeff

I mean no, slowed it down, that was a brilliant idea of yours.

David

Well, that was the thing. Actually, when it came to us, now that we're talking about it, it was a mid tempo, it was almost a swing mid tempo. Almost in two, but not quite. It was in four, but it was still mid tempo. And we said, what if we really slowed this down and made it quite a ballad-ic thing? It was almost a quarter slower.

It was significantly slower by the time. So we then did that and then said, what if we demo all of this, put every instrument, do the whole arrangement and demo the lot, which we did. 

I had much fun with my EWI. We should probably explain what one of those is. 

Jeff 

I don’t even wanna know.

David

EWI, so this is an electronic wind instrument. 

Jeff

A midi wind instrument.

David

This is a midi clarinet if you want. Doesn’t have to be clarinet. You can play drums on it if you want. But signal in, blow it, noise out that you choose from the computer. So I was playing all of the brass stuff, clarinets, horns.

Jeff

Great song, great demo. If you wanna hear it, certainly you can stream it but you can go to Episode 1 of Season 2 of Fleabag and it’s prominently featured in the very first scene.

David

This is the song, not the EWI. Just to be clear.

Jeff

Correct. Well, thanks for that clarification.

David

Okay, let's move on to the recording.

Jeff

So we got six tunes, seven tunes, and we are going into Abbey Road Studio 3 to record. We have the band during the day and the gals coming at night. 

David

Well, we haven't talked about who they are.

Jeff

Yeah, go ahead introduce us.

David

So we've got Jo Goldsmith-Eteson and Sarah Brimer-Davey.

Jeff

And Jo.

David

Jo Forbes L’Estrange. And so why was, what made this so much fun?

Jeff

Let's just go right into it. I mean the band session was incredible. We had some musicians that you'd worked with before and we can go back to that but –

David

And I will, remind me.

Jeff

Yes previous, a couple weeks previous to going into the studio, Jo, we were all very excited, and she told us that the three of them were going to wear costumes like You know Andrews Sisters costumes to the vocal recording and we being the dorks that we are were like -

David

I’m in!

Jeff

Let’s get costumes too.

David

I will do it! So we turned up and I should point out at this point that we offered the option to our publisher who not even politely, declined. 

Jeff

This is Andrew Sunnocks.

David

He’s like “I'm not doing that”

Jeff

I’m sure there was an expletive involved in a funny way, of course. So, yeah, so after the band session, we go to the evening session where the vocals were and we go upstairs in Studio 3 at Abbey Road above the live room. There's an upstairs and there's like a changing room or a sitting room or however you want to do it. And there's a little bathroom up there. And so, yeah, we went and put on our costumes. And what was your costume?

David

My costume was an army costume. I'm trying to remember exactly. It was a dark –

Jeff

It was like a grey, was it a RAF? mean, or was it just a generic?

David

Oh my goodness. So I went, I'll tell you now that, I mean, I went to a costume store in a very strange warehouse in the middle of nowhere with the whole of the family. I tried on some stuff. I'm still in therapy about it. I've got some photos that I have never shared with you and never will. 

Jeff

Oh my god, that’s good. That’s good for the podcast.

David

Of me trying on stuff. I found one and said, this looks good. I have no, we're going to put a picture of this up. Let me know if this is an Army, Navy, air force, not a clue. So thanks for asking. What about you? What about you?

Jeff

So I did the same thing. I went to a costume shop not far from my house and I got sort of a zoot suit, but it didn't have a jacket. It had long high pants. 

David

Oh yes, it did. 

Jeff

And suspenders and I got a hat.

David

I will never forget the impressiveness of watching you dancing in it.

Jeff

Oh well, I wish I'd practiced because that would have been more fun, but...

David

You know what, if I could have chosen to do one thing with my life that wasn't that, it would be to dance that kind of stuff. No I’m, serious, I would love to learn to do that. 

Jeff

No, I agree.

David

But yeah, I was watching impressed.

Jeff

So yeah, I mean it was without question one of my favourite sessions at Abbey Road because it was just us being stupid and silly and I

David

And I will mention the band now because I remember them looking, I mean, these guys are, you know, world-class top of the line musicians. I can't remember everybody's name and I'm going to apologize, but I know we had Colin Good on the piano who the very first session I ever did for Heavy Hitters, he was on that. I think there were a couple of others, Enrico Tomasso, who has been very helpful and I've met him since and we've had a drink and I went to watch his concert not so long ago in Manchester in the Bridgewater Hall in the UK. 

Jeff

Very cool. 

David

And yeah, so these guys came in, they were utterly bemused by the costumes. They did not know what was going on.

Jeff

I don’t even know if they saw the costumes, did they?

David 

Oh, they sure did. We had a conversation about it and there was a little that. We had Ant Law on guitar, great guitarist, him up if you haven't seen him. And Mike Smith on drums and just a bunch of great musicians. And we had a hoot.

Jeff

It was. I just remember sitting there and we had the break and we were getting ready. They were starting to set up the mics for the gals to sing, and we looked at each other and we're like, should we go put our costumes on? Here we are, you know, at work essentially.

David

Standing in Abbey Road. I mean they recorded Dark Side of the Moon in this right, you know, and we've gone to costume stores because we're all about the professionalism.

Jeff

Hey, that's called realism, right? I mean, you bring it to the project, you got to wear your 40s gear if you're going to be singing 40s music.

David

Well, I guess so. 

Jeff

Sticking with that at least.

David

That said, when I think back to this project, it's some of the music that I'm most proud of that we've done.

Jeff

Some really, really fun stuff. And yeah, I mean, it just sounds so good. Sarah and Jo and Jo, two Jo’s, which is –

David

Yeah.

Jeff

They filmed a video during the session of you. And there was a Hurry Santa video as well, isn't there?

David

That there is. That there is. And there's a video of you doing the dance. And you're going to see it because I am finding this video and at the end of this, I am finding a way we are squeezing this in. It's not TV, we've got time. So yeah, there's some stuff. Fun times.

Jeff

Yes. Well, thank you to Jo and everyone involved in Audio Network as always. And thank you, David.

David

And thank you, Jeff, and take car until the next time.

Jeff

All right, see you soon. Bye!

As always, thank you to Audio Network for allowing us to use the music you heard on today’s podcast, all of which was written by David Tobin, Joanna Forbes L’Estrange and me, Jeff Meegan. Now, please enjoy You Are off our Vintage Vocal Swing album.