As creative director of Watchfire Music I usually spend my time touting our own artists, but recently I downloaded two CDs of inspirational music that are out of the WFM box and now deep in my waking and sleeping consciousness.

Two of my absolute heroes are Peter Gabriel and Bobby McFerrin and their music has been coursing through my brain now for days.

Ten-time Grammy Award winner/vocal innovator Bobby McFerrin surprises us yet again with VOCAbuLarieS, his first new release in eight years. Like his #1 worldwide hit song Don’t Worry Be Happy and his multi-platinum duo album Hush with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, VOCAbuLarieS is based on Bobby’s experiments with multi-track recording and his ceaseless exploration of the potential of the human voice.

VOCAbuLarieS is Bobby McFerrin music for the 21st century. A collaboration with the composer/arranger/producer Roger Treece, VOCAbuLarieS features over fifty of the world’s finest singers, recorded one at a time and in small groups to create a virtual choir made up of over 1,400 vocal tracks.

Constructed as meticulously as a Mozart symphony or a Steely Dan album, intricately synthesized from countless stylistic elements, VOCAbuLarieS may be unlike any album anyone has ever recorded. Yet the music is always accessible, joyous, and inviting.

The first song on the album, Baby, absolutely blew me away.  It is a masterpiece of recording vocal perfection and a cappella singing.  If the song Don’t Worry Be Happy is all you know about Bobby McFerrin, sit back, strap on them headphones and prepare to be amazed.

The New York Times says: “Bobby McFerrin is an accomplished musician who burst onto the a cappella world in the 80’s. Often appearing alone on stage, Mr. McFerrin sang multiple parts in a cappella renditions of popular and original songs.  If a rhythm was needed, he produced it with his voice or his body.  He started making people aware of what you could do with one voice and one body…  He pointed to a new direction for vocal music, so people started listening with a fresh set of ears.”

Here is the master’s masterpiece.

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Peter Gabriel is another master musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel has gone on to a most successful solo career.  More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music.

In 2010 Gabriel released Scratch My Back.  The album is made up entirely of cover songs including material written by David Bowie, Lou Reed, The Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Regina Spektor, Neil Young, and more.

The concept for the record is that Gabriel covers songs by various artists and those artists in turn will cover Gabriel songs to be released on a future follow-up album called I’ll Scratch Yours.

My fascination and deep appreciation of the mastery of this album is from the fact that Scratch My Back features only orchestral instrumentation; there are no guitars, drums, or electronic elements that are usual attributes of Gabriel records.

His orchestrations are rich tapestries of layered elements that knocked my socks off and continue to do so on each listening.  When it comes to music, here is a guy who really knows what he is doing.  I also simply love the deeply felt performance that he gives each song, always opting more for the emotional individuality, rather than vocal perfection.

He’s real.  And on this particular CD, covering so many great songs, he has the ability to make these great songs absolutely his.  This is an album that I shall listen to over and over again for years to come.

For more inspirational music, thoughts and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.