What’s it like to write a song with 92-year-old music legend Burt Bacharach?
“Oh, incredible,” said Daniel Tashian, a two-time Grammy Award-winning Nashville songwriter-producer. “He would say these amazing comments like, ‘I’d like to hear more romance coming from the rhythm section.’ One great thing he said was, ‘Seems like everyone is ‘going to the chorus.’”
“Stuff like that,” Tashian continued, “just old school wisdom that you really can’t get anywhere else.”
Old school wisdom translated to rich, dapper pop music on “Blue Umbrella,” a collaboration album released by Bacharach and Tashian last year. Except for one Nashville session, the pair wrote via FaceTime and composed the five-song record remotely a by-product of COVID-19 protocols.
Bee Gees legend Barry Gibb is set to release his collection of reimagined classics done in tandem with country and bluegrass artists,
Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1, on January 8, and he s given fans a preview of one of the more iconic duets on the set. Words, a 1968 single for the Bee Gees, is beautifully taken on by Dolly Parton, whose unmistakable voice carries the beginning of the wistful song over gentle piano before Gibb joins in to harmonize with her.
The album, which is helmed by Grammy Award-winning Nashville producer Dave Cobb, features Gibb on reimagined Bee Gees songs with special guests including Parton, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Alison Krauss, and more.