3.7.20
My band The Four Fathers have just released the last of three songs we recorded before the coronavirus hit, with the multi-talented musician and producer Charlie Hart, whose illustrious career involves playing with Ian Dury in Kilburn and the High Roads, many years with Ronnie Lane, after he left the Faces, in Slim Chance, and several occasions spent working with the wonderful Congolese singer Samba Mapangala.
The release is ‘The Wheel of Life’, a meditation on aging, and on the importance of living in the moment, which I hope has some resonance right now, as we all try to cope with the impact of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which brought our thoughtlessly excessive lifestyles to an abrupt halt three months ago, but which has also precipitated a forthcoming recession of possibly terrifying proportions, as well as silencing all forms of culture that involves live interaction at close quarters.
Live music is just one the casualties of this strange new world, and while we try to work out how to resume entertaining one another in a live context, creative people are suffering. In an attempt to help, Bandcamp, the US online music service, which we use in preference to streaming companies, has been waiving its fees on specific days throughout the coronavirus lockdowns, starting on March 20, when music fans spent “$4.3 million on music and merch — 15x the amount of a normal Friday — helping artists cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and so much more”, and followed by May 1, when fans paid artists $7.1 million, and June 5, when fans paid artists $4.8 million.
Today (until midnight PMT) is the fourth occasion in which Bandcamp is stepping in to help artists, and if you’d like to help The Four Fathers at all, we’d be delighted.
Below is ‘The Wheel of Life’, which we recorded with Charlie Hart in a session in December, and mixed in February:
You may also be interested in the other songs we recorded in that session. Here’s ‘This Time We Win’, an eco-anthem on which Charlie plays Wurlitzer piano:
And here’s ‘Affordable’, our punky rock’n’roll assault on the iniquities of the housing development industry, whose most misused word is “affordable”, for properties that aren’t actually “affordable” at all:
And please also be aware that our first two albums, ‘Love And War’ and ‘How Much Is A Life Worth?’ are also available (on CD as well as to download), and that the first two songs were recorded with Charlie and released in 2018 and 2019 are also available: ‘Grenfell’, and our anti-Brexit anthem ‘I Want My Country Back (From The People Who Wanted Their Country Back).’
We’re hoping that, before the end of the year, we’ll be able to record more new songs with Charlie for our third album.
Thanks for taking an interest!
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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or here for the US, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.55), and for his photo project ‘The State of London’ he publishes a photo a day from eight years of bike rides around the 120 postcodes of the capital.
In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London. For two months, from August to October 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody. Although the garden was violently evicted by bailiffs on October 29, 2018, and the trees were cut down on February 27, 2019, the resistance continues.
To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.
Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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3 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
Today, Bandcamp, the US online music service, is waiving its fees to help musicians, so please feel free to buy any of the studio recordings by my band The Four Fathers, including our brand-new online single, ‘The Wheel of Life’, a meditation on mortality and living in the moment, which we recorded with the great musician and producer Charlie Hart (Ian Dury, Ronnie Lane, Samba Mapangala).
Our whole back catalogue is available, including our first two albums (also on CD), and four other songs recorded with Charlie, which will be on our third album, hopefully out by the end of the year.
...on July 3rd, 2020 at 7:52 pm
Lori says...
I like your voice, very good songs. They used to let songs like yours on the radio, but that was decades ago, sadly.
...on July 3rd, 2020 at 8:57 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks for the supportive words, Lori. Good to hear from you.
...on July 3rd, 2020 at 9:54 pm