Sometimes she feels lonely... so she sings

My next door neighbour is a fascinating character, at 82, she's still savvy and switched on, but very frail these days. She was born in Italy and married a Glaswegian (who was stationed in her small town in Bolognia) and so her English is an unusual blended accent of Scottish and Italian. She told me once that she would have liked to have been Opera singer but got married instead! Her kitchen is adjacent to my dining room and often I hear her singing as she makes her meals. I told her the other day how much I enjoyed hearing her tunes, and she replied that 'sometimes living on your own gets you down and lonely- so I sing, I sing so I can hear the sound of a voice out loud'
This morning as I ate my breakfast, she was singing loud and true- it was 'Moon River' and it was one of the saddest and most beautiful renditions of that song that I have ever heard... Later I will tell her again how good it is to hear her singing, but I felt that I didn't want to let that moment pass by with out marking it in some way... I'm always in search of authentic art, art which moves and touches you and leaves you somehow different as a result- and that is exactly what my neighbour has given me this morning...

you tube songs

Bill has just posted the video he made to Please Don't Pass Me By on You Tube- here's a link...

Cunning Plans!

Hey Folks, here’s a belated Happy New Year greeting to one and all- though after the devastating news in the last 24 hours of the Haiti earth quake- all previous thoughts of festivities pale into insignificance…

Anyway these last weeks Bill and I at Hushland Central have been plotting and planning our next bold moves for 2010 and the release of my new CD number final instalment of the colour trilogy- Dust and Gold. (Kudos to anyone who gets the Ani Difranco song reference in that sentence there!)

So here’s a bit of what you can expect to be hitting your inboxes in over the next weeks and months….

New Dust and Gold CD Special Offer Pre Order Packages!
We will be opening up the shop for a limited time period to take pre orders of the new album at the beginning of Feb-
And there will be 2 special offer deals you can buy into both will include a limited edition bonus 4track EP available only with the pre- order deals
We will tell you more very soon!

Brand New Website
Bill is working hard on creating a snazzy new Rachel Taylor-Beales.com website that we plan to go live with in March- and to celebrate this we’ve been busy mixing tracks from 2008’s wonderful gig at The Point- that will become available as free downloads from the new site…

Hushland at Home
After the great success and adventure of invading living rooms across the UK last year, we’ve decided to do it all again and this time put out a general invitation to anyone of you who might like to play host to a Rachel Taylor-beales concert in your home- there will be a page specifically dedicated to the logistics of this on the new website but do drop us a line at anytime if this sounds like something you might be interested in pursuing…

CD Launch Gig
We are planning a big old gig with a host of guest-ing super talented musicians to join with Rachel and form a unique big old band to coincide with the launch of Dust and Gold in May… with a whole load of new visuals to project behind it all…

and there will be more info on all of this to follow soon…