Welcome To Producers Corner

This is the 5th release from the Dick Groves EP Series, called ”The Oaks Studio Releases”.  This collaboration is the second project from the lethal music combination of Bob Lucido and Dick Groves.  With a few remixes and some new tracks from Bob Lucido, this project doesn’t skip a beat from it previous projects.

Bob’s lyrics always have great meaning and depth and his delivery is classic, like Bob Dylan and a few like him.  This is a classic for the old school, and the collectors of great singer / songwriter music.

Same Day write up

Music and production – Dick Groves

Lyrics and vocals – Bob Lucido

Bob Comments that the song is built on a mix of stories and heartaches.  The story of looking for a love and then finally finding a love, to find out the it cant work in the end.  She is the first to say goodbye, and says you have both gone as far as you probably ever will.  You make great friends but that’s about it.  She leaves, and the Same Day she leaves you realize you really are in love with her.

Dick added, ‘The original mix was inspired by an artist, Chris Rea.  An easy listening feel added to Bob’s vocals.  I added the additional statutory saxophone solo. I wanted a contemporary feel, and found this by adding a different feel with the string sections, acoustic bass and a percussion-based beat.  There is even a smooth horn in there for good measure to give an unusual mixture of modern and conventional.’

Time

Music and production – Dick Groves

Lyrics and vocals – Bob Lucido

Bob said, ‘One evening while visiting a local diner, I noticed an older man sitting at a table all alone.  He had a cup of coffee in front of him and was staring into it.  I started thinking if he had lost his wife recently or a while ago and was sitting there just thinking about her.  Maybe thinking about the times they had together and now he was alone.  None of us know when, all of a sudden, life changes… it can happen at an early age, it can happen as we grow older.  But in any case we should all maybe take a little time to reflect on our lives, the past, the present, and the future… I sometime think about my life and how many different stories I could write… Almost like I lived many times in the past… so different.. at different ages we are really different people… What a lifetime of stories… it’s great to reminisce about the loves, the good times, the bad times.. and all the rings of time…..  “Does anybody really know what time it is?” as a great band once asked’.

‘Musically, this track started with quite a complex layout and structure’, said Dick, ‘but combined with Bob’s deep lyrics, I really think we have pulled it off.  The gentle rolling groove compliments Bob’s interpretation, perfectly.  There are elements of a ticking clock in parts of the rhythm section which also adds to the overall gelling of the track.  Unusually, the two part chorus starts with a break from the vocals and features a muted trumpet. This lets the track breathe and give a feel of nostalgia and adds to the sense of the ‘time’ theme.

OLD FRIENDS

Lyrics and vocals by Bob Lucido

Music and production – Dick Groves

Bob said, ‘I was sitting around thinking one day about Old Friends… kids I went to school with .. kids I played in the streets of New York with.. wow, where have they all gone.  What are they doing now?  It was these thoughts that started me thinking about Old Friends… Then I started thinking about the New Friends I had made, new people who were involved in my life.  People like Dick Groves, who a year ago I hadn’t even heard of and now I work with him to produce songs and stories like this one.  Dick is a new friend, but he seems like an Old Friend.  We think on the same track in many ways and it helps my writing ability.  It also helps to bring out those things that I had forgotten about… This song will touch many, because we all have Old Friends and we all have New Friends’.  So sit back and reminisce about some of your Old Friends.

Dick said ‘We went down the jazz route with this one. A slow relaxed swing and a laid-back sax line, sets the scene and it’s produced in a way to evoke that ‘live’ sound in a smoky jazz bar..  The easy going piano and sax solos in the break add to the picture. Bob’s story-telling takes over with a theme that everyone can relate to, especially those who have experienced a full and enriched life and know the importance of friendship’.

Memories

Lyrics and vocals – Bob Lucido

Music and production – Dick Groves

Bob said, ‘Dick laid down some nice old blues and I just started singing out.  Soon I was singing a chorus line…      It reminded me of some of the songs I had performed over the years. For many years I fronted a cover group doing the oldies,  a Sha Na Na type thing.  Dressed up and all, we would cover the old tunes of the 50’s and 60’s.  It was a good time, we had lots of gigs and lots of fun performing for the crowds.. I still am close friends with most of the members of that band.  Funny how things come around again. Now I pick up extra gigs playing the oldies again 50’s and 60’s style in many varied venues… So, I still have fun with these and playing them brings back memories of those days with the band out there have fun playing all those clubs’.

Dick said, ‘I had this inkling that Bob’s voice would be a cornerstone for a blues based number, and thought I would give it a shot.  When I initially received Bob’s ‘first draft’ I smiled all the way through it.  This was clearly his bag.  After that, it was just a matter of deciding how to produce it.  Just goes to prove, sometimes ‘old school’ hits the mark. See if you can listen to it without tapping your toes…. I doubt it!’

Release Information

PRODUCERS: Dick Groves
TITLE: The Oaks Studio Releases – Volume 5
LABEL: Touch Music – Top 40 UK
RELEASE DATE: June 22nd, 2017
Catalog #: TMGUK-06222017
File Under: Pop, Top 40
UPC: 786851595789