Chapter 9

Wednesday was a clear day, so Willow went over to the vicarage to speak to Reverend Russell. She found him in the church, polishing the altar furnishings.

“Good morning, Willow. Another fine winter’s day out there. What can I do for you?”

“Yesterday, Gina and I were asked to fill in on alternate Sundays at the Cathedral. The organist has gone to Germany to see his son in hospital. It may be for a few weeks, starting this Sunday.”

“Well, well. That’s a feather in our cap! Both of our organists playing in the Cathedral. I’m sure that there are others he could have asked.”

“He said there was, but none that had the standing within the church community. I think he likes us.”

“So, when we have one, the other will be in the city.”

“There may be a period where I have to go into the clinic for a minor procedure. I’m told that I’ll be up and around inside a week, but there may be a Sunday when the organ sits quietly.”

“That’s not a problem. It sat quiet for a lot of years, so a day without it won’t kill us. Your ladies' choir can lead the singing. They’re really getting quite good. They will be in big demand come Christmas.”

When she left him, she went home and sat writing lyrics and thinking about tunes until lunch, ate a small meal, and continued at her desk until mid-afternoon. She then committed three new songs to the computer, all from the aspect of a teenage girl and becoming a woman. She was already thinking of it as an album called ‘Journey’.

After dinner, she walked with her father to the club, where he opened up and she got the Yamaha set up. When the ladies arrived, she handed out the lyric sheets.

“Now, ladies. Today we are going to do something different, and something a bit harder. This is the stepping stone towards true choir singing. If you look at the lyrics, you will see that I’ve highlighted your copy. Those are the words you will sing. There are eight of you, and I’ve split you into three groups, by voice type. There are three different colours used. I will play the piece a couple of times, and you can sing along using all the lines. Then we will start with you only singing your highlighted lines.”

She played the music of the first verse to give them a sense of the tune, then played as they sang. She ignored slip-ups on the first and second tries, then they did it the third time without a problem. She gave Ashley a nod and he gave her the thumbs-up.

“Ladies, so far, you’ve done well. We’ll have a short break to allow you to forget everything I’ve said and then will do things the hard way. By the way, on Sundays, for a few weeks, me and Gina will be playing the organ in the Cathedral. Evensong is between four and five and is a wonderful chance for you to use those beautiful voices of yours if you want.”

They stopped for a hot drink and some crisps. After a comfort stop, Willow arranged them in the three different groups. When they were ready, she played the piece, and they sang just the highlighted parts. When they finished, they all knew that they had turned the corner. She took them through it again, and then they sang the piece that they had sung the previous week. Then it was time to pack up and go home.

On the walk home, Ashley remarked that he was getting prouder of his daughter with every passing day.

“That was almost easy, Dad. Those ladies want to sing, and I’m just helping them along. It’s tomorrow that worries me. I’m being picked up first, and I’ve never seen inside a recording studio. What I’m worried about is that it won’t have any atmosphere and the operator will want us to do things his way.”

On Thursday morning, she was looking out of the front window when a car came into the street. She put her big coat on and went out, locking up behind her. The driver was Zac, and she got in the front seat.

“Good morning, young Willow. Ready for the start of your career?”

“I’m not sure, Zac. I’m worried about the studio.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve been there before. The operator is a nice guy, called Jock McBride. He’s very good at what he does and will listen to what you want.”

They stopped at Gina’s house, and she got in the back.

“Good morning, friend. Good morning, Zac. Will you be doing a lot of driving us around?”

“When you’re famous, there’ll be other drivers, but, for now, you’ll have to put up with me.”

They directed him to Jacob’s home, and Zac got out to put the guitar case in the back. They spoke about their week so far, with the girls surprising both the males with the news that they would be alternating at the Cathedral for a few weeks. Jacobs eyes lit up.

“When are you playing, Willow?”

“This Sunday. My Mum will be taking me in.”

“Can you pick me up, please. I’ve heard a lot about the place, and it will be awesome to hear you play.”

“It will be a long day, Jacob. I play for the morning service and then have to hang around in the city to go back to play the Evensong between four and five. You’ll have to get your parents approval to be out all day.”

“What’s this Evensong?”

“It’s an hour where the congregation sing hymns, carols, and choral pieces. There’s no praying or sermons, just everyone having a religious sing-along. The Cathedral Choir are there as well.”

They picked up Brent before going to the studio in Birmingham. When they were ushered in, they found a cosy rest area, a large room and the biggest mixing board that they had ever seen. There was a set of drums, two keyboards and an amp for Jacob. They were introduced to Jock. Marcus and Peter were already there, waiting for them. Marcus had done the introductions and got them ready to record, because, as he said, ‘time was money’.

Jock asked them how they wanted to work it and they told him that they wanted to sing the songs as if they were on stage. He got them seated so they could see each other, and then placed the microphones around them. There were a lot of microphones. When he was ready, he went to the mixing desk.

“Do you want to play something, while I set the desk. If it sounds odd, I can set you up with headphones, so all you hear is the final mix. Try it without, and then with, so you can decide.”

They started playing, while he slid things one way, and then the other. The other three sat behind him with headphones on. As he slowed down, they were all smiling. He waved for them to stop and then brought out four sets of headphones, plugging them into jacks by each one.

“Try these, now. If you like it, just keep playing. If not, we’ll start again without them. I’ll give you a wave if something’s wrong. I’ve been told that you’ve done all of this live. I’m really keen to hear the result. Watch me when I’m sat down, and I’ll give you the count-down from five as I start the recording going.”

The four of them looked at each other and grinned. Then they looked at the mixing desk and he held up five fingers, then curling one at a time until he dropped his hand. Willow started playing the piano intro and then they were into it, the sound that they were hearing was as if they were in the audience or listening to the finished album. They worked through the entire extended set, ending with ‘We’ve only Just Begun’. They sat in silence until the four men started applauding.

They were allowed a comfort break and then Jock broke out the coffee and biscuits as they sat and listened to themselves on playback. It had that live sound that Willow was afraid that they’d lose, and everyone had smiles when the last track finished. Jock looked stern.

“That was great as it stands. I can change the order of the tracks to make a more streamlined sound. If you’re making it a two-disc album, you’ll need to make the last track as the first of the second disc.”

Marcus smiled.

“What do you want to do, now?”

Brent spoke.

“We don’t have anything as polished as that, Marcus. We have a few songs that Willow sent us, that we haven’t played together. Has everyone put something on them?”

They all said that they had. Willow told Marcus that they were mainly her own writing, and the basis for an album that she called ‘Journey’, or ‘Journey of a Girl’.

They sat back at their instruments and put the headphones on. Willow was trembling, wondering if it was all rubbish. The hand went down, and Jacob started with the first song. Willow and Gina joined together as Brent played a gentle beat. Willow sang the song and the trembling stopped as she listened to herself and her band. The others had done everything asked of them. They continued with the song about finding a true friend, with Willow and Gina singing in harmony. The last song, about the first kiss, had the girls in harmony, with the boys singing the repeat in a harmony of their own.

When they finished, the others crowded in and congratulated them. Jock announced that the recordings were perfect and asked how they had achieved it. Gina explained that Willow had put down the vocal, piano and organ tracks, and that they had worked on them at home, adding their own input.

“We haven’t even got around to sending it back to Willow to see what she thinks.”

“And what do you think, Willow?”

“I think that these guys are the best band in town, Marcus. What we just played was as good as I hoped, and better than I had worried about.”

“Anything else while we’re here? Then I’ll take you for lunch.”

Willow thought a bit.

“Did anyone work on ‘Young Love’?”

The others said they had.

“Jacob, did you listen to the Moody’s DVD, especially ‘Driftwood’?”

“Many times, Willow, generally singing it to you in my mind.”

“All right. We’ll try ‘Young Love’ first, Gina singing, then you can lead us in on ‘Driftwood’. Jock, all of these are for personal use only. If we do make another album, we’ll do it properly.”

“Got it, Willow. I’ll add them to my private collection of out-takes.”

They all settled back in their places, headphones on, and waited for Jock’s signal. Gina was great with the song, as Willow, with her increasing knowledge of voices, thought she would be. The rest of them sang the backing vocals. After a pause, Jacob began with the guitar intro to ‘Driftwood’. On the DVD, it had been Herb on an electric, and the Fender acoustic was far better. When they had finished, they sat silently and then stood and stretched. It had been a long morning, but Willow thought that they had done well. Jock hadn’t asked for any retakes, and the other three were all smiles. There was shaking of hands, and a few hugs, before Zac put the guitar back in the car and drove them to an Italian restaurant for lunch. They were joined by Marcus and Peter and were seated on a big table, a little way from the other diners.

Peter ordered beers for the adults and lemonades for the children and suggested the dishes that the restaurant was well-known for. They had a good meal. When they had eaten their fill, Zac remarked that he had been told, on the way in, that Willow and Gina were playing the Cathedral organ on alternate Sundays for a few weeks. This made Peter perk up.

“It’s all right, Peter. I gave the Dean your contacts, and the bishop has agreed to pay us, seeing that we’re replacing the paid organist while he’s away.”

“I’m glad that you have a business head on your shoulders. Now, I believe that this album will be called ‘Coventry Carpentry’ – volume one and two. Any idea of a cover?”

Willow reached into her big shoulder bag and pulled out a folder. Taking the A4 sheets in it, she handed them out, one each.

“My mother is a graphic artist, and we put our heads together to come up with this.”

Peter started laughing and Willow wondered what was wrong. He managed to take a grip of himself.

“Willow Rose. This is perfect. I would have a consultant charge us a thousand pounds and they wouldn’t have come close. This is the album cover, and one of the posters. My office can produce a bigger version which you can all sign, and we will be able to sell it as is or laminated. I see that it’s signed ‘Wendy Rose’.”

“That’s my mother. She works in Coventry, usually creating those store brochures that clog up the middle of the newspaper. She has the same program that they use on her computer at home.”

She looked at her friends.

“You lot are quiet; did we do wrong?”

Gina stood up and pulled Willow into a hug.

“Nothing wrong, friend. Just stunned at how Wendy managed to capture the feel of the quartet.”

Jacob replaced her and held Willow close as they kissed. Brent just hugged, but kissed her cheek, whispering ‘thank you’.

Marcus was smiling.

“This can’t be everything. I see that look on Willows face that she had something else up her sleeve.”

“I have been thinking about a lot of things lately. I believe that Zac tried to poach us from the school when we had played the Deep Purple concert.”

Zac snorted.

“That was Artie. He was so over the top we almost got thrown out of the office.”

“Well, the band that I was on stage with are called ‘G-Force’ and are all good at what they do. They’ve been joined by Jim, the guy I stood in for, and they did the blues concert part at the school. The DVD shows Gina playing, but Jim is now the organist. I think that they would be a good fit with what we’re creating. They could have their own website, but with links to us, and vice versa. The same applies to them as it does to us, so no live shows, but creating a digital presence. They are, so I’m told, a good party band with a lot of material from the previous century. If you give me business cards, we can talk to them at school and let them decide if they want to contact you.”

“Sounds, doable. What else?”

“One other thing. Before we did the Blue concert for the school, Gina, Brent and I played in a group with three guitarists that Brent and Jacob know. We were called Blue Two and did the Moody Blues half.”

“And very impressive it was, too. I’d seen the original band and if I closed my eyes, I could imagine being there again. But that concert is property of the school.”

“Correct. However, in the week before the Blue concert became a priority, we rehearsed, and almost perfected, a cover of a concept album by Kansas. That has never seen light of day, so there are no restrictions in recording it as a Summer Rose album. All we need is your approval to go ahead and then the other guys to want to be in the limelight. It could go out as a digital download. One track from it, so I’m told, was in the charts a long time ago. That one was ‘Dust In The Wind’.”

“I remember that one. It really got into your headspace. I’ll be humming it for the rest of the day, now,”

“It’s one of my favourites too, Zac. It’s perfect for Jacob and his Fender. We could change the vibe by having me or Gina sing it. The original group only had men singing.”

“We’ll listen to that one on-line and get back to you. The rest of the album may not be to everyone’s taste. Is there a recording?”

“Herb made one of our last session on his phone. It won’t be great but will give you an idea if he’s still got it.”

Brent laughed.

“He still has it, Willow, I think he plays it back to himself every night. He calls it his missed opportunity. Those guys will bite your arm off to be in a proper studio with that album being laid down.”

“How many would there be?”

“Seven, Marcus. Plenty of space for that in the studio.”

“That is sounding interesting. Give this Herb my card and tell him to send me that sound file. It would be an interesting mix, on stage, with these G-men opening, and you four with the bigger band on second. You could do a mix of Moody’s, Kansas, Carpenters and your own songs. I can see a short season during summer, in the main local cities. Not enough to upset the Head, but enough to sell albums and merchandise. By that time, we would have enough feedback from the Carpentry album to estimate numbers and prices.”

“OK, Marcus. Just don’t forget that we have the big Saint-Saens concert in the Cathedral in May.”

“How much are you involved in that?”

“Gina and I are on keyboards for a fair bit of the first half. Brent is on percussion with Jacob on the triangle, unless he’s given something else. The second half is the ‘Organ Symphony’, that tune from ‘Babe’, with me on the Cathedral organ. I’m told that they’re going to use footage of me singing while I played at a rehearsal, before we played the last concert. That’s another link you can put on the website if you want. I know it’s mainly just me, but I did get named as the organist.”

She was given a bunch of cards from the three men, which she put in her bag. Then Marcus settled up and Zac took them home, Brent first, having to wait while Gina and Brent said cheerio, behind the front bushes. At Jacob’s house, she got out and they kissed next to the car while Zac opened the back and pulled out the guitar case.

Willow got out with Gina, and they sent Zac off. The girls went into the house, where Maisie was putting on the kettle.

“How did it go, girls?”

An hour later, Maisie had been brought up to date to her amazement at the number of tracks that the band had recorded. Willow then got hugs and went home, thinking about what had been achieved. If the final result was as good as she had heard in the headphones, she would be happy. She was truly in awe of the way the other three had interpreted her own songs. They would be added to within a few weeks. She smiled when she thought that there would be no shortage of Summer Rose material out there when it all took off. She had no fears that it wouldn’t. She had listened to, and watched, the audiences enjoying everything that had been played, so far.

At home, she worked on the songs that she hadn’t sent to the others yet. After all the playing this morning, it was nice to work a few new things out, especially that she could now utilise the second keyboard. She went downstairs and started preparing dinner for when her parents got home, something that would never have been on her radar a year ago.

That evening, she was able to give her parents a blow-by-blow account of the recordings.

“You’re saying that you recorded those three of your own songs? But you and the band have never rehearsed them!”

“It was as if we had spent hours on them, Mum. I recorded a piano and basic organ, with the vocals, and emailed it to the others. They listened to that and added what they thought would work. I was trembling when we were asked to play them, but it was fantastic. The others are on the same wavelength, so close it’s downright scary. I’m getting that from Gina; it’s as if we’re one mind in two bodies when we’re performing. They loved the cover art, and it will be used as a poster as well, after they’ve printed something that we can sign.”

“That will be neat, the products will then be reproduced with authentic signatures.”

On Friday, Willow continued to work on her own material until her phone pinged with a text message. That told her that there was an email coming her way with all the details for the Sunday services. When she opened her email page, she found a few others.

The Cathedral email was printed off to study and show to Wendy. One from Peter’s office was printed off and kept for her father to look at. It had the details of her new account and the date that the income from the Hikers had been moved to it. In the few days since the diversion, it had already amassed more than a thousand pounds.

There was another from Marcus to tell her that he was very happy with the recording session and that the quartet was more professional than any other groups that he had worked with. He asked about her own songs, and how long it would be before there was enough for an album. She replied to that one, thanking him for his comments and telling him that there should be enough in about a month.

She got back looking at her writing. After a light lunch, she worked on recording the three sections of four songs. Then she took the Kansas material that Herb had given her and made a copy for Jacob. She sat and listened to it again, realising just how much she had learned since she first heard it. Without having Alec to do the singing, she made a list of the tracks and put names of the best voices next to each track. With ‘Dust in the Wind’ she thought that she and Gina could alternate, one couplet at a time, with the boys doing the backing.

Later in the afternoon, she walked over to the church and sat at the organ after finding most of the Evensong music she didn’t already know, then played through what she had to set it in her mind. The Dean had penciled her in for two hours on Saturday for rehearsal. She knew that her father would be looking around to price garden sheds and garages, so she would
need to ask her mother to take her into Coventry.

While she was playing, Gina came in and climbed the steps to sit with her, watching and learning. When Willow had finished what she wanted to do, she sat back and turned off the fans.

“How are you, friend?”

“Oddly flat, Willow. The recording was such a concentrated session, I’m not sure what to do now.”

“Find the hymns for Sunday and run through them. Then we can go back to my place, and I’ll play you the material I’ve been working on. I haven’t emailed it to anyone yet. I had the thought that you would all be feeling a little flat today.”

Gina looked at the board for the hymns, with Willow confirming that they were new. She played the three hymns through and then played some Bach. That had been something she had picked up from Willow, playing gentle Bach that she didn’t have to think about. It settled her pulse rate and allowed her to breathe easier.

When they left the church, they did as suggested, with Gina adding a more interesting track to each of Willow’s recordings. They worked well together, being able to tell each other where they were going wrong and get things back on track.

When Wendy and Ashley came home, the girls hugged and wished each other luck for Sunday before Gina left to walk home. Willow stood by the door watching her go down the road. It was odd, as she was thinking about Gina as a sister, with their mental links making her almost a twin sister.

Marianne Gregory © 2025