John's Bio ...

I had a normal upbringing in the suburbs of South West London except that I never knew my father and this keeps coming up as a theme in my songwriting.

My family were very much into classical music and that was seen as real music and anything non-classical wasn't. But I listened to pop radio Radio Luxembourg and like everyone else the "newly created" Radio 1. And after I had seen the movie of Woodstock at the age of 15 I wanted to become a guitar hero player like Jimi Hendrix, Alvin Lee and Carlos Santana.

I had music lessons and learned to read music, I can't play the piano properly from music but am quite proficient at keyboards of all kinds and play guitar bass and most stringed instruments OK. I also dabble with drums and percussion so can create my recordings solo.

The 70s is my era musically Led Zep 2, Steely Dan ,Stevie Wonder, Bowie ,Little Feat, British prog rock such as Caravan, Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, Gong and also although it was not trendy at the time I always liked country music and The Carpenters. Also the Prog giants Yes and Genesis (when they were still prog)

By the 1980s I was entertaining ideas of succeeding in the music industry as a songwriter and performer but the need to earn a living for a growing family had put a stop to that by 1986 and I only started again once I was semi-retired in the early 2010's.

My first project in 2010 was to look out all my compositions from the 80's and record the ones that had in my opinion stood the test of time and this ended up as 17 tracks on my 2011 album Retrospectives. Most of these songs were originally written and reviewed on cassette tape in the car during the day and recorded on my Teac 4-track at night time with headphones. I made the re-recordings in 2011 on a used Yamaha AW4416 in a tiny home studio.

From 2010 through to COVID I was out and about performing a huge range of covers at all sorts of venues and events but I was lucky enough to have the time to be able to get into writing songs again.

METHODOLOGY

I keep two notebooks one of words: lyrical ideas and fragments and the other of musical ideas and fragments.

My words cover a wide range of personal emotions and scraps of current affairs and anything I come across that I find interesting.

Musical bits come in the form of melodies, riffs, chord sequences, rhythms and sounds I find promising. I am often working on more than one song at a time so lyrics and music might switch around.

I generally create my songs in the studio on the multitrack recorder (Avid Pro-tools) so can build up layers as I go along. Also I often change tempos, key signatures and alter and refine the layout, structure, instrumentation and overall mood. So the production is happening alongside the songwriting. Only very occasionally does a whole song come at once and where that has happened I've put it in the individual composition notes but it is rare TBH.

Once I have a set of songs I like to finish them off, think about how they would work in order and then compile an album. I always preferred listening to whole albums rather than individual tracks and if enough thought has been put into it the tracklist is important to tell a bit of a story and develop and atmosphere.

When I decided to write a musical in 2020 this came to the fore because the narrative is essential and Lily the Musical is also like the classic idea of a double album.

I have always written songs and produced recordings for my own enjoyment but I have never given up the idea that others might like them too.

John (Crawley) 2025