Songs

Songs the new Album from Adrian Munsey. Available to pre-order from: Amazon, Play.com or download from iTunes

From the choral ensembles of the Treorchy Male Choir and the popular classical “boyband” Blake, to the purity of the voice of Elin Manahan Thomas and the soulful Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and Horns from Alabama, “Songs” is a unique album of highly melodic, spiritually uplifting and lavishly orchestrated works by composer Adrian Munsey with words by Jeff Chegwin.

Six years in the making, “Songs” is a potent mix of sentimentality, nostalgia, melancholy and stirring emotion. The album includes different interpretations of the same songs. It opens with Will Martin singing “Faraway Place”, his beautiful voice set against Celtic pipes and orchestral strings produced by Nick Patrick. Later, the Treorchy Male Choir, a 125-year institution, give their take on the melody in their customary rousing way.

The tragic “The Star Who Fell from Grace”, is given an orthodox treatment by Jane Alexander and could come straight from a West End musical. Later, Honor Blackman gives the song a more thespian interpretation, as one would expect from the former Avenger and Bond girl now well into her 80s. “Working with Honor was a thoroughly happy experience, not least because of the incredible impact she had wherever she went,” said Adrian Munsey. The song has already achieved a lot of airplay.

Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas contributes two songs on the album, “Voice of an Angel” and “I’ve Been Praying”. “The purity of her voice is so wonderful”, says Adrian Munsey. “Voice of an Angel” is also performed by the highly popular and hunky foursome Blake. Blake also sing “Beautiful Earth”, a hymn to the precious nature of our planet and the importance of preserving it.

Adrian Munsey’s admiration for the work of the singers and musicians on the Stax and Atlantic labels led him to choose the Muscle Shoals Horns and Rhythm Section for inclusion on two tracks, “Hymn to Muscle Shoals” and “Song for a Young Child”. The tracks were laid down in Alabama in the same studio in which Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke and many others had previously recorded.