THE CHOICE - Bonus Link
Another cut from the forthcoming Droge & Summers Blend Sessions aka Volume Three
I’m a tad tardy with my new music for the New Moon. Better late than never.
Paid subscribers can stream or download “The Choice (feat. Elaine Summers)”—in hi-res if that’s your thing—by visiting the link found beyond the paywall below. I’ve also included an instrumental version.
“The Choice (feat. Elaine Summers)” will be one of thirteen tracks on the forthcoming Droge & Summers Blend Sessions, AKA Volume Three.
We have a street date: Black Friday, 11/24/23!
In 2014, shortly after the release of The Droge & Summers Blend Volume Two, I received an invitation from music supervisor Mark Wike to take a crack at writing the theme song for a Netflix series called Bloodline. I accepted and enlisted my partner, Elaine Summers.
The main title sequence had yet to be created, so there was no picture to work to. At this early stage, there was no set length for the piece. Fortunately, we were treated to screeners of the first two episodes. Seeing the show armed us with enough of what we needed to get to work.
Early on, we decided to enlist our friend Jay Bellerose. Jay is an exceptional drummer and percussionist. There is a reason he is one of the most respected session drummers on the globe—he’s a true artist. As a core member of producer T-Bone Burnett’s team, Jay has made records with a distinguished list of household names like Robert Plant & Allison Kraus, BB King and Elton John. The list goes on and on. (More about Jay in this previous post on “Rooftop.”)
I won’t even try to describe Jay’s drumming. You need to see and hear for yourself. Here he is on “When the Levee Breaks” with Robert Plant & Allison Kraus at the Glastonbury festival.
With Jay in Los Angeles, the plan was to work out the music first in our studio on Vashon Island. Then we’d send the tracks south for drum and percussion overdubs with engineer Lynne Earles at her studio in North Hollywood.
“The Choice” was one of a few tracks we shaped up to send along to Jay and Lynne. It contained loops of me drumming (placeholder only), bass, guitars and a vocal melody with no words. “Bumba dah dee ya ba bumba dah dee ya.”
Through the magic of technology, we could pipe Lynne’s studio sound into my studio. We also connected with video and voice over Skype. The audio was sketchy on Skype, so I communicated by holding up old country records with comments pasted on.
The idea was to capture multiple layers of drums and percussion that we could use modularly. We still had no clue how long the main title sequence would be, so we wanted to have a lot of flexibility in how the track could evolve. By muting and unmuting layers of drums and percussion, we could arrange and rearrange until the cows come home.
I remember grinning from ear to ear as I heard each new part come into being. The modular theory was working. Each part dovetailed beautifully with the others. Lynne captured Jay’s nuanced performances beautifully.
Once I brought the tracks up in my studio and started playing with them, I could not have been happier. They felt and sounded amazing. Jay’s contribution inspired the next phase of writing, so much so that he earned a songwriting credit.
Speaking of songwriting credit, after much of the sketching, demoing and drum tracking was complete, Elaine and I rolled up our sleeves and wrote lyrics and a new melody. Once the writing was finished, we fleshed out the production and mix and prepared to submit our theme song to the powers that be.
In the end, they did not choose our track. It’s yet another one that got away. There seems to be a bit of a trend here on Love Songs Etc. Check out these posts about other fish that got away: “Hang On To Me,” “Rooftop”and “Hard to Tell You.”
The demo we submitted clocked in at a minute fifteen and contained just one verse. Elaine and I deemed the track worth spending more time on. We made edits to rearrange the piece into a full song and wrote a second verse. Then, we rewrote the chorus.
Well, we’ve almost reached the paywall. Beyond it is “The Choice (feat. Elaine Summers)” in all its final glory that paid subscribers can stream or download now.
Everyone else will have to wait until 11/24/23 when The Droge & Summers Blend Sessions aka Volume Three comes out.
Here comes that paywall.
PAYWALL IN 3…2… 1