Nashville, TN (December 9, 2010)—Nashville engineer Steve Marcantonio, who worked on John Lennon’s last session, has created a tribute album that will benefit the Nashville Engineer Relief Fund.
Thirty years ago yesterday, Lennon was shot and killed in front of his apartment building in New York City, returning home with his wife Yoko Ono after a recording session at the Record Plant. Marcantonio, now a resident and member of the Nashville music community, recalled, “I had just left him when he was shot. His death and life had a profound effect on me and the trajectory of my career. Working with him will always be one of the pinnacles of my career.”
Marcantonio, who went on to work in Music City on projects for country acts like Vince Gill, George Strait, and Reba McEntire, recently worked on Taylor Swift’s Speak Now and Blake Shelton’s Hillbilly Bone, but he says paying tribute to Lennon was something he always had in the back of his mind.
The All We Are Saying… project, which Marcantonio has been working on for much of 2010, is a collection of some of Lennon’s solo songs sung by Nashville artists who Marcantonio hand-picked because of his respect for them and their appreciation and passion for Lennon and the project.
All profits from the sale of the recordings will benefit the Nashville Engineer Relief Fund (NERF), a benevolent fund close to Marcantonio’s heart. NERF supports the audio engineers in the Nashville community. “John had a real affinity for the sound engineer,” Marcantonio recalled. “He was really good to all of us and very respectful of us as we made records with him. He would definitely approve of this project.”
All We Are Saying… will be available in early 2011. “I’m an engineer who was helped out during some very rough times by this fund, and I wanted to help the organization that assisted me,” Marcantonio said of the Nashville chapter of the National Audio Engineering Society, which started the fund 15 years ago. Marcantonio, who serves as executive producer of the project, emphasizes that all the music is from Lennon’s solo career, and all artists, studios, musicians, and engineers donated their time and were extremely enthusiastic about it. “Recording this project reminded me of why I love living and working in Nashville,” Marcantonio stated. “It is truly about the music, and hopefully our hard work will shine through in these recordings.”
Some of the artists who appear on the project are: Rosanne Cash (Look At Me), Rodney Crowell (“Oh My Love”), Foster and Lloyd (“Crippled Inside”), Jeff Hanna and Matraca Berg (“Whatever Gets You Through the Night”), and Gretchen Peters (”Love”).
The project will be distributed worldwide by Sweetwater Sound, a long time supporter of the Nashville Engineer Relief Fund.
Nashville Engineer Relief Fund
theaudiomasters.org/the_nerf.html
