I wrote pieces of this song from the mid- to late-1990s. Kevin and I recorded it at Stryker Studios in Danville, Virginia, in 2005, but we never made it past this stage. (Totally my fault!)
The music sounds good, but the mix is rough—no backing vocals and little to no vocal mixing. Still, it brings back so many memories and makes me wish I could go back and handle things a lot differently.
Vocals: Jo Hawke
Guitar: Kevin Hawke
Keyboards: Kirk (Glenwood) Smith
Bass: Mark Earp
Drums: Jere Stryker
K. Hawke, S. Hopkins, J. Rising – 2002 Hopkins Studio Recordings
Kevin’s 2002 recordings at his cousin Shawn Hopkins’ Danville basement studio.
The first track is 200 Days, which Kevin (lead vocals & rhythm guitar) wrote with Shawn (drums & keyboard) and Jody Rising (lead guitar & backup vocals). The second track is Johnny L.V., which features only Kevin on vocals & guitar.
I wish there were pictures of the recording or at least a picture of the three of them together… back in the pre-cell days.
Kevin wrote “There’s No Way” in 1994. It was among the first songs he’d ever written.
Here’s an audio version of it from one of our “kitchen concerts” in 2010:
And here are the lyrics:
There's No Way by Kevin Hawke You've never lost the sparkle I see in your eyes. As the months have slipped away, I've come to realize I can't predict the future, but there's one thing that I know: There's no way in my heart I'll ever let you go. I've never cared for anyone the way I do for you. I could not forget you if I wanted to. I'll never care for anyone like I do for you, I know. There's no way in my heart I'll ever let you go. Giving up is not my practice. I hope you can understand That being without you Will never be in my plan. If it takes until the end of time, I must be sure that you know: There's no way in my heart I'll ever let you go. Sometimes it feels like a dream that we ever met. To God for this I'll always be in His debt. If it's what you want, I'll leave, but I want you to know: There's no way in my heart I'll ever let you go. Giving up is not my practice. I hope you can understand That being without you Will never be in my plan. If it takes until the end of time, I must be sure that you know: There's no way in my heart I'll ever let you go.
Copyright © Kevin Hawke – Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
We uploaded this video to YouTube back in December, but for some reason it never got posted here.
Written in 2002, “Music Man” may be Kevin’s biggest hit. It’s a beautiful song of grief over a lost loved one and the friends and fans who make it all okay.
Kevin says he often has people asking him whether it’s about his own life. In fact, he wrote it about his uncle Roy Norton, himself a popular local musician, just after Roy had recently lost his mother and suffered an accident at work.
Copyright © Kevin Hawke – Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Well, it’s not really a video. I just made a photo-collage and stretched it the length of the song, which is the same version we already have here. At least it will play elsewhere this way…
The kids and I have a goal: a special “get up” song for each day of the week.
Okay, it’s more my goal than theirs, though they do sing along a lot. And at the rate we’re going, we’ll be lucky to have one song completed before they graduate from high school. LOL
This piece of a something is in the running for — you guessed it! — Monday:
p.s. This is another attempt at getting my recordings from my phone to this site. The file was recorded using the TapeMachine app. I shared it to Evernote. (There was no option to share to this site via my WordPress app.) And then I used my Evernote app to share it to this site via WP. Still a convoluted process and still no player here.
Question: Do you see a player when you go to Evernote using the link above? I do on my Droid but not on my laptop using Chrome.
UPDATE: I don’t think my Evernote experiment worked very well. Or maybe I just left it a step or three too soon…I downloaded the WAV file to my laptop, converted it to MP3, and uploaded it to my server.
And voila!!
Nope, I still haven’t added anything to this particular piece…
A BIT OF TRIVIA: That “Sorry” at the end of the file was because one of my students had walked in the classroom to ask question or something. LOL I know I’m weird.
I must’ve been on a Billie Holiday kick when I came up with this little work in progress. Warning: It’s just a few lines and you can tell by the revision in the second time around I really have no idea where it’ll one day end up going (if anywhere)…
UPDATE: Just ignore the Evernote. I had recorded this on my phone, and I haven’t found a streamlined process to get those files here. So I went back and downloaded, converted, uploaded:
This is my first attempt at using Evernote to record a piece and then share it with my website, so I’m not sure how it will work out.
I’m looking for a good (and easy) way to post audio files from my mobile. I have an awesome audio recording/editing app (Tapemachine) that I may be able to use to send to Evernote…but the file sizes have to be small and space is an issue, too, with the free version.
Plus, I want the files to be playable here. It seems improbable…
Here’s the link to my little chorus:
One of the songs I’ve been working on over the last month or so finally took its first baby steps this week. The half-chorus I had now has its second part (I think):
More of you, less of me
That’s the way it ought to be.
Fill me Holy Spirit, let me be your light,
shining like a candle in this cold, dark night.
Aww…
Really, though, they’re just like babies in many ways, “my” songs. :D
I’m very attached to them, very sensitive about them, and very protective over them just like I am my babies.
And I’ve also come to know more and more that they aren’t my own production.
While my babies came to me via God and man, my songs are pure gifts from God (no matter how I’ve distorted them in the past by not acknowledging their origin or seeking to retain their original value).
I think the main inspiration for this piece of a song came from what our priest, Father Charles Breindel, said was his chosen Bible verse, John 3:30:
“He must increase; I must decrease.”
Kevin’s brought it up many times since, especially when I’ve been in a whiny mood. :)
(And I promise to send the audio as soon as I figure out my WiFi issue… It’s really sweet, sweet like I used to avoid like crazy.)
UPDATE:
Wow. 2010. It’s been five years, but I’m adding a recording of this sweet little chorus.
I found this file when I was sending all of my Voice Record files to Dropbox, so I’d have room to record an interview for my grad class, so it’s probably not the one from way back then, but who knows. I’m not sure why Voice Record made it into a video (MP4); maybe I did something wrong. Regardless, it plays. ;)
And…I haven’t made any further progress on it, but I still sing it a whole lot in the car (which is probably where all of the background noise in this recording is coming from).
