For Immediate Release
September 9, 2020
Alfred Howard Writes: an ambitious collaboration of musicians and family born out of the pandemic
Alfred Howard, an institution of the San Diego music scene, has launched a new project born out of the coronavirus pandemic called Alfred Howard Writes. Howard, the lyricist and percussionist for more than six different San Diego-based bands, has found a renewed passion for his writing and music through the isolation of the pandemic and the monumental events we have been living through over the last six months. Alfred Howard Writes is a multimedia collaboration taking place virtually with fellow musicians and performers around the world. He plans to release 100 songs (two per week) over the course of a year.
The concept is simple. Al writes all of the lyrics and partners with a vocalist and other artists to record each song, utilizing the magic of technology to share tracks and ideas. All songs are mixed and mastered by Mike Butler. In addition to musical artistic partnerships, Al is also collaborating with his mother, Marian Howard, a watercolor painter for more than five decades; Marian is painting an original piece of art based on her son’s lyrics for each of the songs that emerges from the project. Tapping into the different vibes and genres Al has explored in his past music (everything from soul, psychedelic rock, folk, Americana, spoken word), Alfred Howard Writes explores all of that and more, including jazz, bluegrass, and blues, leading to a very eclectic mix of flavors from song to song within the project. Some of the participating artists include Brad Barr (The Barr Brothers), Nicki Bluhm (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers), Dani Bell (Dani Bell & the Tarantist), Nathan Moore (ThaMuseMeant, Surprise Me Mr. Davis, The Whole Other), and Goodnight, Texas (featuring Avi Vinocur, backing vocalist for Metallica), among many more.
It all began very organically. “I started posting lyrics that I was writing during the pandemic on Facebook with short videos of myself reading or singing the lyrics and asking others to share their takes on my songs,” says Howard of the genesis of the project. “I’m not a great vocalist so I was hoping to find some better performances than I could present. It was a mixed bag to be honest, but from this experience came the idea for this new site.” On his Facebook page he promised: “When this is over, we’ll have a nice little time capsule of beauty in the midst of a tragedy.”
As things started to take shape and songs were finished, Al launched a new website as the home for the project in June – https://AlfredHowardWrites.com – on which to showcase the collaborative musical pairings, stories, and artwork that go along with each song. The first song released (on June 8, 2020) was “We All Breathe The Same Air,” a track he worked on with Nathan Moore, written in response to George Floyd’s lynching in the street. Featured on the song are Moore on guitar, vocals, clarinets; Jeff Leonard on bass and Tyler Thompson on drums (Fruition); and Brad Barr (The Barr Brothers, The Slip) on guitar.
Each week, two new songs are released, one on Monday and one on Thursday. Al offers anyone the ability to stream, view, and read all of the material for free, however listeners and fans are encouraged to take advantage of the subscription plan to support the artists involved, which allows either monthly ($10 per month) or annual ($100 for the full year) options to gain access to download and own the songs. Individual songs can be purchased for $1. In addition, Al offers short stories and other behind-the-scenes experiences for additional levels of subscription. Finally, each of the original paintings by Marian Howard, as well as some limited-edition prints of the artwork, can be purchased through the site.
All of the money will be split with the musicians on the songs. To date, 27 songs have been released on AlfredHowardWrites.com with a minimum of 73 collaborations to go over the coming months since Al has promised his subscribers 100 songs over the course of a year. Not a surprising undertaking from an artist that KPBS called “one of San Diego’s most prolific musicians.”
With over 21 years of writing music under his belt before the project even began, Al had reached a crossroads pre-pandemic at which he was pondering stepping away from music entirely. “Of all things to resuscitate my creativity, it was a pandemic sweeping across the land,” he recalls. “A month of being holed up at home forced me to put pen to paper with a sense of urgency and figure out how to collaborate from a safe distance. Out of this darkness came a light in the form of songs and collaboration. It’s an extremely special feeling to find one’s niche, and I feel that after two decades of searching, I’ve stumbled into what I was supposed to be doing. AlfredHowardWrites.com is going to be the home of collaborations with artists I’ve known for a long time and always wanted to work with, some familiar folks I’ve worked with for ages, and hopefully some people I meet along the way. Together, we will figure out a way forward in this brave new world.”
As Al recently told the San Diego Reader, “We’re documentarians, and this year seems important. A pandemic, a social justice movement, a heated election, a fractured America — I wanted to capture the year in song and turn things around quickly, with quality, but have the capacity to be reactionary to what’s going on. Making albums sometimes takes away that capacity. At the same time, it’s not going to be all newspaper [headlines]. There are the personal developments of a year which coincide with the external. The goal is just to get it all out there to see and hear and reflect on.”
Singers who have participated in the Alfred Howard Writes project so far (with songs already out or with songs coming out soon) include:
Brad Barr (The Barr Brothers, The Slip)
Nicki Bluhm (Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers)
Nathan Moore (ThaMuseMeant, Surprise Me Mr. Davis, The Whole Other)
Shelbi Bennett (the Midnight Pine, Baby Bushka and the Havnauts)
Annie Ellicott (Jeff Goldblum)
Rebecca Jade (Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact, Sheila E.)
Dawn Mitschele (Cardinal Moon)
Oh Spirit
Kimmi Bitter
Sara Azriel
Jasmine Bailey
Mara Kaye
Ellis Bryant (The Heavy Guilt)
Erik Canzona
Austin Burns
Jenn Grinels (Siren Songs)
Goodnight, Texas (featuring Avi Vinocur, backing vocalist for Metallica)
John Meeks
Birdy Bardot (the Rosalyns, the New Kinetics)
Rebecca Marie Miller
With many San Diego session musicians rounding out the songs, two of the participating musicians who contributed drum parts are also known in wider music circles. Jake Najor (who plays drums on the songs from Birdy Bardot and Jenn Grinels, and an upcoming Rebecca Jade song) has recorded or played with TV On the Radio, Kelis, Raphael Saadiq, Jason Mraz, Joss Stone, Aloe Blacc, and more. Elizabeth Goodfellow (who plays drums on the song from Oh Spirit) has toured with Iron and Wine, Conor Oberst, Calexico, and Phoebe Bridgers.
About Alfred Howard:
Alfred Howard grew up in Morristown, NJ before heading to Boston, where he attended, then graduated from, Boston College. After college, Al decided to move to San Diego in 1998 and set out on a Kerouac-style trek across the United States. It was on this journey that Al began to hone his craft of writing, and he is a writer through and through. While he mostly writes poetry and lyrics, Al has written two books and countless short stories and musings that can be found across the internet. Al formed his first band in San Diego, Alfred Howard and the K23 Orchestra, a spoken word, jam/funk band which featured Al as the front man. Since the K23 Orchestra days, Al has played a more behind-the-scenes role as lyricist and percussionist. Al writes for more than a dozen songwriters these days and formed the Redwoods Collective, which features a collective of musicians and front men and women who all perform the poetry and lyrics of Al Howard.
https://www.alfredhowardwrites.com/ | https://www.theredwoodsmusic.com/
About Marian Howard:
Marian Howard is a visual watercolor artist with a background in fashion advertising, illustration, and printmaking. She attended school at the Boston Institute of Art, The New School in New York, The Printmaker’s Workshop in New York and San Francisco, and the Art Student League in New York City. She has traveled internationally, and every experience, every vantage point taken in by her eyes seeps out from her brush. Over the years, she has been featured in countless galleries and museums, and has taken home several best in show awards. She has created a vast and brilliant library of art over the past four decades, diverse in its scope and aim.