Stuart James Wright

Blackberry Way – The Move

My earliest childhood memory of “getting into” a song was when I was only 4 years old. My mother bought my brother and me a copy of The Move’s Blackberry Way. I wasn’t even old enough to have a clue what the words were but I happily listened to it time after time. Now I listen to it and realise that its wonderful melody, orchestration, the hint of psychedelia and melancholy is something I am still constantly striving to achieve with my own material.

The Move were formed in Birmingham in 1966, and were a crucial part of the British Invasion movement and played a major role in shaping the sound of the rock and roll scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The band's lineup consisted of lead vocalist and bassist Carl Wayne, guitarist Trevor Burton, drummer Bev Bevan, and keyboardist Roy Wood.

The Move achieved their biggest success in the UK with "Blackberry Way," which reached the top of the charts in 1969. They also had several other Top 40 hits in the UK, including "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," "Flowers in the Rain," and "Fire Brigade."

Despite this success in the UK, The Move struggled to gain the same level of recognition in the US. Their biggest hit in the US was "Brontosaurus," which reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1971.

In 1972, The Move disbanded, with Wood and Bevan going on to form the influential rock group Electric Light Orchestra of MR Blue Sky fame. Roy Wood also formed Wizard who had a massive Xmas hit with "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day". Despite their relatively short time together, The Move left a lasting impact on popular music and are fondly remembered as a pioneering force in British rock music.

Sound on Sound

These days my computer allows me to record as many crystal clear tracks as I like, probably too many, but when I recorded my first song things were a whole lot different.

I was 10 years old and I had a Philips cassette player/recorder. It could record one take and play it back. I remember my brother used it to record Bohemian Rhapsody off Top of The Pops, the first time it was in the charts.

Anyway, I would record myself strumming away and then play and sing along with the recording. And that was it until in ’78 we got a stereo sound system with another cassette recorder built in.

Now I could play and sing along to my first recording using the Philips and record the result on the new system. This is like a LoFi version of what loopers do these days.

The problem with this is that if you then take the resulting recording and try to do it again and add a third “track” the resultant hiss is generally unbearable and there is little in the way you can “mix” the track. Great for songwriting ideas though.

So with a £16 cassette recorder and a bit of ingenuity, my songwriting and recording career was on its way.

Stuart

This one’s similar but not quite the same as the one we had. This one looks a bit posher.

Leaving on a Jet Plane to Grease

In 1973 our teacher, Mr Burton, started giving us guitar lessons. We all had a go, some better than others. It was fun. And after a few lessons of picking out Skip to My Lou, we then progressed to our first real song. Leaving On a Jet Plane. It’s amazing how much can be done with just three chords. We were pop stars.

So that was my start at 8 years old. Moving swiftly on, when I was 10 my parents bought me an Electric guitar for Xmas. It was awful and we took it back in January and traded it in for a wonderful 1963 Hofner Galaxie. This wasn’t vintage then, it was second-hand. I’ve still got it and it’s worth a great deal more than the £100 my mother paid for it.

I continued learning and trying to play anything I liked, mostly the Beatles. Now I was teaching myself and had hit a bump. My fingers just weren’t big enough to play bar chords.

In 1978, Grease hit my world and I immediately bought the sheet music. It was all bar chords. I would just have to make those fingers stretch. Lo and behold I was there. My first song played with bar chords. Grease.

Stuart

Vinyl, Abbey Road and Pieces of Gold

With the current trend of bands returning to releasing vinyl records, I’ve cast my mind back to 1990 and the making of Pieces of Gold.

I recorded & mixed four tracks in my studio at Warp Farm throughout January and February and then put them out on a cassette to see which two tracks would be the best for a single. Once everyone had chipped in with their thoughts we decided on Mandy is Missing and Pieces of Gold.

In June, I went down to Abbey Road studios in London to finish the mastering and cut the master lacquer. At the time Mandy is Missing was slated for the A-side and Pieces of Gold for the B-side. I went down to observe and was very impressed by how much they were able to do. The mastering engineer had just finished working on MC Hammer’s latest single.

My songs were both over 4 mins 20 secs and therefore getting a bit on the long side. This meant that we couldn’t have the bass as “deep” as we would have liked. The options were: edit it down to 3 and a half mins, release it on 12 inch or leave it alone. We left it alone and I was still overjoyed at the end result.

When we passed around the test copy it soon became apparent that Pieces was going to be more instantly popular than Mandy. So, we put it out as a double A under our band name 1159. This set off a sequence of events. Firstly we got some good reviews in the music press which then got 5 record labels asking to meet up with us and the chance of a major deal. Secondly, we got a letter from another band called 1159 threatening legal action if we continued to use the name. This led to me having to get the singles re-stickered that had already been manufactured. It was at this point I decided that I would always put stuff out under my own name since it is my belief that you can’t sue someone for using their own name.

Stuart

Below is the video of the new recording of “Pieces of Gold”, March 2018.

First Impressions

You only get one chance to make a first impression and it has always been a struggle to choose which song should be let out to stake my claim on a listener’s time. After spending countless weeks recording and fine-tuning a song it is hard to choose. Usually, the latest one gets preferential treatment but It would be unrealistic to think that it will always be the best song to draw people into the rest of the catalogue.

So I’ve decided to divide the number of listens by the number of downloads on a per song basis and the one with the lowest ratio gets to go top of the list. The rest are to be sorted at my personal whim.
By that method, Why Did She Leave is winning by a country mile with a ratio of 1 download for every 4.5 listens. Pieces of Gold and I Lie Bleeding share second place with a ratio of 1:8
The only drawback is that the second two seem to be getting the more positive comments so it may be I should just keep rotating the songs around. Decisions, decisions…….

A Little Self Promotion – Spreading the Word

Over the years I’ve tried to promote my music with whatever the current trend is. So, in the 80s, I would record demos onto cassettes and then either give them away or sell them to anyone who might listen. In the early ’90s, this progressed to putting out my own 7″ single and once again pushing it to anyone who might help further my career. This led to interest from 5 labels and the chance to be “signed”, but this came to nought and I was back to recording and releasing songs on my own ShowSnaps “label”.

At the end of the 90’s I took to the World Wide Web and hoped to make a killing, but I was probably 5 years too soon. Download speeds were too slow and the web pages that could be created were not appealing.

So, moving on to the ’00s through to the present day I have continued to improve my website and I use Facebook and email newsletters to promote my latest songs and having a major label deal is no longer something to be desired.

Over time I’ve garnered quite a few good reviews and I’ve used these to back up my promotional activities, but due to family commitments, I’ve only just started getting back to doing live work which is a great way to get my music into the ears of potential followers.

I need your support

The problem I have now is that Facebook makes me pay to get my posts in front of more than a small fraction of your followers and therefore my reach is seriously restricted. The only way I gain any traction on Facebook is if someone shares my posts, otherwise, it can easily cost me more than I can hope to make. So the most cost-effective way for me to stay in touch with my followers is to ask them to sign up to my email newsletter.

Every time someone shares my songs or signs up as a VIP supporter I dance a happy dance. So, if you read my posts or listen to my music and enjoy the experience please don’t be shy about signing up to become a VIP Supporter or sharing my posts. It goes a long way towards making the ship stay afloat.

Thank you,

Stuart

Crowd Reviews – Not for the faint hearted

When I finish a new song I sometimes submit the finished recording to a blind test using a crowd reviewing service. This then helps me by highlighting what the average listener thinks of my song and from this, I can make changes if I feel it’s appropriate or promotes it to certain sets of people.

Anyhow, I’ve just got a Crowd Review back for “Bringing the Harvest Home” and for your entertainment, I am posting a link to the final report here. Crowd Review

Seize the Day – Epic Orchestral Jangle Rock

Who knows the dangers we might meet?

Inspired by listening to the book To Rule the Waves by Arthur Herman, about the British Navy and Herrmann’s The Great Age of Discovery about great explorers I have written a track called Seize the Day. These chaps must’ve had balls of steel. Heading out into the unknown. Makes our over-scrutinized lives seem rather small in comparison.

Stuart