Alan JonesBig Heart
Alan Jones is a Newcastle Upon Tyne based guitarist, singer, foot tapper, finger clicking solo artist and musician.
As a story telling guitarist, folk singer and song writer he is inspired by the soulful voices of Sam Cook, Tom Waits and Otis Redding as well as the great fingerstyle players; Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Tommy Emannuel , blues players such as Ry Cooder and acoustic all round performers such as John Martyn, Isaac Guilory and Rory McLeod.
Alan considers himself a fingerstyle guitarist first, wanting to make all parts present and possible on one instrument. To his show he adds foot stomping and percussive style, Alan makes a groove to enjoy while he sings his hearts desire to make a show that is different from your usual singer / song writer.
However, for this single “Big Heart“, Alan wanted to create a full band version of the song. To start with, we hired David French as a session drummer to lay down a drum track. The drums were recorded at the same time as the bass line. Alan put down a guide guitar track and played the bass, while David followed Alans direction. After the main rhythm parts were recorded, I worked with Alan over a number of sessions to build up and refine the production. We adhered to Alans’ artistic vision while we built up the tracks. Keys parts were performed by Ron Brown in an afternoon session.
We also, mixed an acoustic version of the track. This was more true-to-life, performance based and chilled out than the full-band version and makes a great accompanying variation.