love and blood
New album by award-winning singer, and songwriter, Cherie Camp. Scroll down to see the process, the musicians, and to listen to the album.
love and blood
There’s a song, a round I think well known, we used to sing around the campfire when I was a child. Still do, in fact.
“Fire’s burning, fire’s burning, draw nearer, draw nearer, in the gloaming, in the gloaming come sing and be merry.”
There is something in that song I found unsettling – although I couldn’t find words for it at the time. The lyrics were a call to singing and merriment but the feeling was wistful. I can still see the glassy eyes, particularly my father’s, of the adults as they sang. I wasn’t sure what a gloaming was, but I imagined it as a kind of netherworld - not a frightening place but not a comfortable one either, and somehow in that murky place we were meant to raise our voices and be merry. To be happy and carry on in defiance of life’s vicissitudes and uncertainties.
I think I’ve always been attracted to music that hints at ambiguities.
I had this idea of the gloaming in mind when we were working on Love and Blood. I found myself taking photographs that I thought might capture the feeling of it. The cover art of this collection was my attempt to paint it. I was living in the gloaming for a while. Perhaps all of us were during the pandemic. In fact, it has become rather a family joke. I have been accused of being too gloamy on occasion which usually means I’m keeping the lights down too low…
cherie camp
Cherie Camp is a singer songwriter from Toronto. She began her career with the acoustic trio Available Space and recorded her first album, a CBC broadcast recording, in 1980 with them. Her second self-titled pop album was a collection of original songs, co-writes, and covers released on WEA Records in 1983, for which she was nominated for Most Promising Female Vocalist at the 1984 CASBY Awards (U-Know Awards). Camp was a featured performer in Jeremy Podeswa’s film Standards, and was also featured on the score for Patricia Rozema’s film White Room.
Since that time, Camp raised two daughters with her husband, film and TV composer John Welsman, and has worked mostly out of the public eye as a songwriter and vocalist in partnership with him. Her voice can be heard on many of Welsman’s scores.
She wrote the opening theme song for children’s series The Mighty Jungle, and Nelvana’s My Friend Rabbit, as well as songs for their Franklin and Friends’ musical special. The films Ms. Conceptions and Stolen Miracle featured her song ‘Blow Out the Moon’.
She has also worked with other recording artists and composers, most notably Shirley Eikhard, and Gwen Swick, John Sheard, Jane Siberry, and Mark Korven.
She and Welsman earned a Genie Award for Achievement in Music/Original Song for Oh Love, written for Nurse.Fighter.Boy, the pUNK Films feature film directed by the late Charles Officer and produced by Ingrid Veninger. Recently, she sang on the score for Daniel Yoon’s soon to be released feature drama East Bay starring Constance Wu.
Throughout the years, Cherie has continued to write her own songs, some of which appear on her new record, love and blood.
the musicians
John Welsman
Co-Producer, Arranger, Player of all but the kitchen sink
Mack Longpré
Drummer, Percussionist
Background Vocalist
Sophie Welsman
Amy Welsman
Background Vocalist
the making of…
Amy
Sophie and Cherie
Amy, Sophie, and Cherie
Mack
Cherie and Jeff
John
testimonials
listen to
Love and Blood was recorded and mixed over a period of four years but the songs come from various chapters of my life. It was arranged and produced by me and my husband and creative partner, John Welsman. John is an accomplished film and television composer, producer and arranger and we have a long history of working together. I guess we have a kind of shorthand between us and we’ve learned to trust each other’s musical instincts. That’s the official story…the truth is that I knew he would put up with me.
We had already begun work on the first song for Love and Blood when the pandemic arrived and gave us the unexpected gift of time - so much time… Arranging and working on these songs during the days of lockdown gave us a focus for our days and a feeling of purpose. There were a few false starts, re-imaginings and radical shifts but there was absolutely no pressure. I can’t imagine a better environment for creative pursuit - working with no external expectations and little awareness of time. In an effort to be practical in our desire to move forward, we took advantage of the talents available to us in our immediate family and the tools we had in our home studio.
The pandemic may have given us time but it robbed us of our favourite musical friends. We used instruments in John’s wheelhouse as a player – piano, guitar, mandolin, dulcimer, accordion and bass – and called on our daughters Amy and Sophie for background vocals, and on our son-in-law Mack Longpré for drums. I am so grateful to them all not only for their beautiful work but for their unflinching support. Not once did they roll their eyes. I am also grateful to our long-time collaborator Jeff Wolpert of Desert Fish Studios who mixed one song at a time over the years as they were completed. With each song he mixed, he gave us the heart to continue and he is so much a part of this work. The masters of the final record in stereo and the mixes in Dolby Atmos were all created by Jeff as well.
I have always loved listening to records from the beginning to the end, preferably with headphones on and the lights low. To get lost in an immersive experience. My hope is that there are people out there who feel the same.
This record is for them.
cherie camp
Release Information
‘Love and Blood’ will soon be released on all the major music platforms, and on Apple Music in spatial audio (!) for a rich listening experience.
Enquiries
Licensing
John Welsman
Available Space Music