I’m delighted to announce the release, on Bandcamp, of ‘Songs of Loss and Resistance’, the new album by The Four Fathers, marking ten years of our existence as a south London-based band playing mostly original folky, rocky, reggae-inflected protest music.
The album, our third, and a belated follow-up to our second album, ‘How Much Is A Life Worth?’, released in November 2017, was recorded, sporadically, over the last six years, in sessions in July 2018, December 2019, July 2022 and January 2024, with the great Charlie Hart, a multi-instrumentalist and producer, best-known as a member of Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance in the 1970s and ‘80s, who also plays electric piano and accordion on three of the songs. Do check out Charlie’s work if you don’t know it, as he is currently involved in two very worthwhile musical projects — the Equators, an epic collective of talented players of African-tinged jazz and r’n’b, and a revival of Slim Chance, mostly featuring musicians who played with Ronnie in the band’s bucolic heyday, following Ronnie’s exodus from the excess of the Faces.
The long genesis of the album was caused by personnel changes, the huge disruption of Covid in 2021 and 2022, and the difficulty of getting everyone together to rehearse, and, most specifically, to work on arrangements of the songs in the gaps between work commitments and, more recently, the kinds of family illnesses that begin to afflict those of us in our 50s and 60s with ageing parents.
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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