Yacht Rock Without Borders

I truly love Henrik Hansson’s voice and musical talent. Of his excellent 2018 home studio cover videos, his James Ingram tribute really stuck out to me, to the extent that I convinced my good friend, Nashville session drummer John Hammond, to join me in a guerilla-style hijack of Henrik’s track. We “borrowed” the audio from YouTube and added drums, percussion and bass to it from our respective home studios. Just for fun.

He didn’t take much convincing, to be honest – he was as impressed with Henrik’s vocals and interpretation as I was. It might very well have ended with just the bass and drums, but John had a few ideas he’d like to try out.

A few weeks later, a version appeared in my Dropbox featuring none other than Michael Omartian on piano. My jaw dropped. Here’s one the guys who made westcoast music what it is adding his touch to the stew.

And we were off to the races. In short order, session guitarist extraordinaire Tom Hemby added a great guitar track, Frode Østang Mangen glued us all together with a great Hammond track, and John’s band buddy from church, Daniel Bondaczuk, added tasteful strings.

We finished the project last May in Nashville, when we recorded Kirk and Julianne Kirkland’s backing vocals on an improvised recording setup in said church. While the Kirklands and I were busy recording, John popped out, and returned a few minutes later with the news that Los Angeles studio legend Bill Schnee had agreed to mix our project.

This project far exceeded my expectations in the best possible way, and I’m incredibly grateful to have so many wonderful and talented people in my life.

So this is the result, a labor of love across three continents.

If you share my musical tastes; enjoy! If you don’t, take a listen anyway. It’s slick and polished, but you should be able to feel the love a little bit.