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Singer-songwriter Jeff Rea travelled to Nashville to record an album that’s close to home.
The West Otago dairy farmer’s illustrious career in country music has put him in the spotlight on stages around New Zealand and the United States, but for his third album, Who I Am, Jeff Rea is bringing it home.
“It’s really an album for my family,” Jeff says. “This is who I am, this is what I believe, these are my kids.
“I’ve got three kids and wrote songs for them when they were really small. Those songs got tucked away. There were other songs I’d written later in Nashville when I lived there for 10 years and they became part of the equation.
“In recent years I’ve been writing with a good friend of mine, Mike Hood, and those songs have also become part of the equation.
“All of a sudden I had this body of work that became the album.”
Recorded in Nashville in November with Jeff’s good friend, US country star Gary Morris producing, the album drew a stellar lineup of Nashville’s premier recording talent to the studio.
Renowned engineer Ed Seay was at the mixing desk and legendary US session drummer Eddie Bayers led the ace team of session musicians.
Bayers has played on 300 gold and platinum albums and is rated by Drum! magazine as one of the top 10 greatest session drummers of all time.
Who I Am is Jeff Rea’s third album in an illustrious career spanning more than 30 years, following First Steps in 1982 and Full Circle in 1995.
It was a natural fit to have his good buddy, US chart-topping singer and actor Gary Morris, producing, Jeff says.
They met in 1983 on the set of the Kiwi TV show That’s Country and hit it off straight away. Within 18 months Morris had convinced Jeff to try his luck in the US, where he progressed from being Morris’s soundman-truck driver to his monitor engineer to band leader.
Jeff Rea still travels to the States every Christmas to tour with Gary Morris. Gary Morris still travels to New Zealand every May to go duckshooting with Jeff Rea.
Jeff says that although Who I Am could be defined as a contemporary country album, he didn’t set out to make it that way.
“We just went into the studio to make an album of good music.
“The musicians had the freedom to express themselves and they did. I’m delighted, really.
“There’s a lot of great music coming out of New Zealand, but I really like what’s coming out of Nashville, and always have.
“I always said if I did another album it would be in Nashville.”
- Jeff Rea’s new album Who I Am is available now on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.
- CD copies are available through Jeff Rea’s website: www.jeffreamusic.com
- Read the Jeff Rea story: http://www.audioculture.co.nz/people/jeff-rea
- Find Jeff Rea on Facebook