Touching, funny, serious, award-winning songs about life and love; all penned, played, arranged, sung, recorded and mixed by Al.
So he never existed... not really, as a real person. He made himself up one day in 1969 and lived a dual existence: half of him surviving on dead-end jobs, the other half believing that one day he would write at least one song that the world would remember. Now half of him is dead, and, as with all conjoined twins (without major surgery) that sentences both of them. It would be sad if it wasn't so pathetic. Fairy-tales always end this way... well not always, rarely... and this was rarely a fairy-tale; so there the similarities end: the ending was neither sad nor happy - it just... was.
The enigmatic and tragic Jackson C Frank was a hero of his... now he emulates that frail and failed soul. Maybe in 40 years people will still say 'Al who?', much as they do today. That would be both a great epitaph, and a fitting legacy.
Below is the page as he inexplicably and hurriedly left it: hot meal still on the table; knife and fork still in place and at the ready; the drink untouched in the bone china cup...
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I now have an album: 'The sentence that I serve' available from CD baby. Click on this mini album cover to take you there:
INVALID -- CDBABY INVALID INVALID INVALID INVALID for AL STRAVINSKY: The sentence that I serve --
It's on iTunes too, where the whole album or individual tracks can be downloaded in mp3 format:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=216015067
Thanks.
I've been a professional musician for 24 years, and over 3000 gigs (I've stopped counting); always working, travelling, trying to make ends meet...nearly...if you could just hold these a minute please...er...thanks: my hands are now free so I can get on with actually (ironically) playing some music at last. I sing and play bass guitar and I play some acoustic/electric guitars also.
Song Info
Track Files
Story behind the song
From the album 'The sentence that I serve'. Click here for link:
We all seek a unique way to express ourselves, and that search starts when we are very young. I've had a stammer all my life, and this song is also about the little boy who was at first surprised, then frustrated, and later debilitated by his inability to communicate what he had in his head. Though it's about 45 years since I first realised something was wrong I still haven't conquered it, and the little boy is still inside me asking for help and forgiveness (though for what I don't know). A bouncy Brian Delaney drum loop drives it along, while the most fluent voice I do have - bass guitar - provides a flowing, uninhibited line throughout; two acoustic guitar tracks (capo at third fret), piano, synthy strings, single lead vocal with up to twelve harmonies, and a bottle-neck guitar line finish it off.
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