“I think this might be my favourite song I have ever written, and it took a while to reveal itself,” Montreal singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk of “Southern Star” from his upcoming album “Revelation”. “I spent about two years waiting for the last verse to come. It was recorded in one live take with me on piano, Oliver on drums, Shahzad on bass and Angie, who happened to be in town, singing harmony. We added Rob Moose on strings and Cindy Cashdollar on steel guitar. I asked her to stretch out at the end, and, when she did, I just sat there in the control room, completely blown away.”
After I played this song solo on the final night of our last tour, my friend and sound engineer Harris Shper came up to me and said,”New song?” I said, “Yeah.” “Strings?” he asked. I said, “Yep.” He said, “Cindy on steel?” said, “Exactly.” He was hearing exactly what I was hearing in my head. I decided at that moment that he would record “Southern Star”.
The night before that show, I ran into Shazhad Ismaily (@ectoderm88) in NYC who added so much to my album “Twin Solitude”. I asked him to come back and play bass. He, myself and Olivier Fairfield, along with Anfie McMahon (who was serendipitously in NY) recorded the whole thing in one take at Dreamland Recording Studios The brilliant Rob Moose added strings. I saved the last few bars of the song for Cindy Cashdollar to play what I think is the most beautiful steel guitar solo l’ve eve heard.
Cindy Cashdollar will be joining us at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal this Friday.
directed/filmed by wondrous Kaveh Nabatian, with Michael Felber, Michael Feuerstack and Olivier Fairfield graciously helping breathe life into this music video. Ok I think that’s it.
I hope you enjoy this song as much as I did writing it and recording it. It might be my favourite song far. Happy summer X
The Fat Angel Sings 