This month sees the release of the superb third album by George Simpson, Hearts Were Gold.

It’s the third album of his I’ve worked on, and the best. All the songs are grade A standard and after toying with pop, indie and folk on previous albums, this album has a more of a country feel which wholly suits him.

The album was started way back in the middle of 2015 with rough demos from George and it was his wish to take it slowly, with each songs evolving in its own time. He also wanted time to do a crowd-funding campaign (which flew past the £3k target) and put some real promotion into it.

On previous albums I’d played the bulk of the instruments but this time George was keen to get a lot of different feels and featured artists on this album. The result is the biggest and most diverse personnel list than on anything else I’ve ever worked on. From pedal steel players to gospel singers to rock guitarists to funk bassists. It shouldn’t really have worked but it did!

This is an extended blog so I’m going to go through each track…

Hearts Were Gold
This is the first song that George put forward for the album. He recorded double vocals in Garageband with masses of reverb and it sounded awesome so we decided to keep that feel for the final version. There are dozens of vocal tracks on this; they’re everywhere. The pedal steel comes from a Nashville session player called Paul Hilton, who ended up on half of these songs. I

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Sarah Haynes – Backing Vocals
Adrian Marsh – Guitar Solo
Paul Hilton – Pedal Steel
Ben Haynes – Drums, Electric Guitar, Bass, Synth

Love You Again
This was a last-minute addition to the album. George was so pleased with how the other Kezia collaboration (Finding Myself) went that he went straight out and wrote another! The track was put together pretty quickly; George recorded acoustic guitar and guide vocal, and then I built the track up from that over a couple of days. The drums are the only ones on the album that aren’t live, but I don’t think you can tell. Both vocal parts were really quick to do, which is always a pleasure.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano
Kezia Gill – Vocals
Will Hay – Electric Guitar
Ben Haynes – Drums, Bass, Electric Guitar, Keyboard, Backing Vocals

Time Is Everything
This one took a few goes to get right and George made up parts of the song as he went along, but I think that gives it an interesting feel. This one is probably the most “pop” song on the album, although the pedal steel keep the country feel going. The drums are actually looped from another song from the album, Lies Between These Eyes.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Electric Piano
Paul Hilton – Pedal Steel
Ben Haynes – Drums, Bass, Electric and Acoustic Guitar

Why You Giving Up
I absolutely love this one. It’s a great song and it really brought home how having different musicians can make a song sound more “whole”. I brought in a guy called Adrian Marsh, who I’d worked with before. He played two contrasting guitar parts and I chopped them up, panned them and added tremolo and reverb for a lush mellow feel. George brought in a guy called Andy Robertson to play bass – five-string I believe, which you can hear in the lovely deep notes at 3:06.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Adrian Marsh – Electric Guitar
Paul Hilton – Pedal Steel
Andy Robertson – Bass
Ben Haynes – Drums, Acoustic Guitar

Move On
George’s most moving song, which gets gets me every time I hear it, given that it’s about a friend who passed away. This one has atmospherics all over it, starting with discordant ambient guitars, massive pianos and whale-like pedal steel. It also has a guest appearance by a singer called Martha Bean, whose voice was so in-tune that I asked for her to send the vocal files again without autotune; she said there was no autotune, she just actually sings like that! I’m particularly please with the drum sound on this song.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Martha Bean – Backing Vocals
Paul Hilton – Pedal Steel
Ben Haynes – Drums, Bass, Electric and Ambient Guitars, Keyboards

Get Away From The Fire
A great vocal performance by George, really ripping into this song. This is another song that was finished quite early on. I recall lots of work on the organ parts for this song; George came up with something for the verse whilst I did the chorus. Same with the guitars; Adrian but the main rhythm guitars down whilst I tinkled with atmospheric picked guitars. And that’s none other than my wife Sarah on backing vocals!

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Organ
Sarah Haynes – Backing Vocals
Adrian Marsh – Electric Guitar
Andy Robertson – Bass
Ben Haynes – Drums, Electric and Acoustic Guitar, Organ

Finding Myself
George wrote a true country song and asked if I knew of any good female country singers for a duet of sorts. Kezia was the immediate choice. I’ve been working with George and Kezia Gill for years and I’ve hired them both of session work so I was absolutely astonished that they’d never met each other before! Luckily, they hit it off and the vocal chemistry worked wonders. The opening riff was a happy accident; George and I were playing a guitarist called Benn some of the finished tracks when he started playing this riff along with Finding Myself. It sounded great so I quickly thrust a mic in front of him and viola! A new riff.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Kezia Gill – Vocals
Benn Hartmann – Acoustic Guitar
Ben Haynes – Drums, Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Keyboards

Lies Between These Eyes
Another female duet, this time with Sarah Bird who was very professional. She arrived, did three takes spot on and left. Twenty minutes, in and out, no messing. This is another track that took a while to get right; there were lots of tempo changes and aborted instruments. In the end, we stripped it back, which always works. Lovely song.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Sarah Bird – Vocals
Andy Robertson – Bass
Paul Hilton – Pedal Steel
Ben Haynes – Drums, Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Synths

Living In The Shadows
Probably the most “out there” song on the album. It started off as a basic acoustic country song in the vein of Hearts Are Gold, but George wanted to go a bit more mysterious with it so we half-timed the tempo and put some soundtrack piano and lonely guitars in, as well as piles of backing vocals. The guitar solo was recorded a year after the rest of the track. George hummed the solo to me and I recorded it!

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Ben Haynes – Drums, Bass, Electric Guitars, Synths

Give Me A Little
One of George’s most classic sounding songs, we let his vocals and pianos dominate this one, although there’s also room for some beautiful female vocals courtesy of Lizzie Deane and some subtle electric. A fitting way to end a great album.

George Simpson – Vocals, Backing Vocals, Piano
Lizzie Deane – Backing Vocals
Benn Hartmann – Electric Guitar
Andy Robertson – Bass
Ben Haynes – Drums, Organ, Electric Guitar

All songs written by George Simpson.
Productions and mixed by Ben Haynes.
Mastered by John McBain.

You can listen to the album on Spotify here or download from iTunes here.  Alternatively, contact George if you would like a CD.