Negus: Dare to dream

Having left Saga in August of 2003, I started work on the material for a solo CD.
After twenty six years in the band, it was time for me to venture out on my own.
I had written almost an album's worth of material for the last CD I recorded with
Saga and they didn't want to use any of it.

I happened to send a couple of my musical "bits" over the net to an old
friend and singer Al Langlade, who lives a thousand miles away in the town
of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
A couple of days later, he sent one back with vocals on it... "Dare to Dream."
I was overwhelmed! It was great!

We formed a writing "team" - I worked on the music here in my own studio and
Al would work on the vocals at his... and the wave files went back and forth over
the net. Originally, I sequenced and/or played everything just to get the songs
written and that is what Al would use to lay down his vocals. I recorded the
acoustic 12 string and classical guitars on "Dare to Dream" and "As I Am."

Then I went into a local studio here in Hamilton (Ontario), the Jamhouse, to lay
down my drum tracks. I spent about three weeks there recording drums...
(engineering and playing!).

Sometime during the writing of the songs, I hooked up with Mark Severn, an
amazing guitarist, and he started laying down the occasional track for me. Once
the drum tracks were done, we recorded guitars over a couple of months at the
Jamhouse - a day here and a day there.

Mark and I had a special chemistry that brought out the best in his playing
and he would have become the third member of the writing team, except that on
July 1st, 2006, I went to see Saga play at a local park here in town, and later that
night I got a phone call - Mark had been killed in a car accident coming home
from a gig. That was two weeks after he had finished recording his guitar tracks.
I dedicate this CD to him. He played some wonderful solos and I miss him.
It is still hard to hear some of his performances without getting teary-eyed.

My old friend and Saga keyboardist Daryl (Jim Gilmour) did a couple of special
performances on this CD for me. He played the piano track on "Dare to Dream" and
the Minimoog solos on "Lust". The guitar solos were done first and Daryl rose to the
occasion to match Mark's stellar performance on that song. The main heavy guitar
track was done very early in the recording process at my studio by Kenny McLaren.

Former room mate and close friend Ian Nielsen is the bass player on the songs and
also in my band. He has been listening to these songs almost as much as I have!

Drummers Tony Furtado and Jack Pedler helped me out with the drum tribe on
"I Rest My Case."

Matt Whale, the keyboardist in my band, did some tracks on "Nightmare".

During the three and a half years it took me to make this CD, I have been playing locally
with an eight piece R&B band called Powerhouse. I enlisted the serviced og John Willett
(Willy) from Powerhouse to play flute on "Catch my Fall" and Dan Elliott to also play flute
on the beginning of "Body and Soul."

Phil Kott (guitarist with Powerhouse) played some nice clean guitar on the chorus of
"As I Am" and played the last track on the CD "Epitaph for Mark" as a very special favour
and dedication to Mark.

Steve Negus
July 2007