The late Jenny Amlen’s songs have been recorded on the new album, “Freedom.”
David Amlen, a native New Yorker who currently lives in New Jersey, will release a poignant and powerful album, Freedom on Feb. 7, and perform with his group Dave & the Divas at a show titled “Freedom and Faith,” Feb. 8 at 8 p.m. at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair. For information, visit outpostintheburbs.org.
The Divas include singers Julie Dobrow, Meg Beattie Patrick, Iris Schaffer Hall, Stacia Thiel and Cecilē Williams, who all hail from Montclair and the surrounding area, and contributed to the album. Amlen plays guitar and keyboards, and will be joined at the show by Kevin Carrillo on drums, Doug Hall on keyboards, Billy Karcher on guitar and Matthew Weiner on bass.
David Amlen and his late sister Jenny Amlen had a deep connection, and Freedom honors her by featuring five of her original songs as well as covers of songs from Elton John’s 1969 album Empty Sky.
“One can feel the essence of Jenny Amlen’s soul in her rich compositions,” said Patrick.
The Freedom ballad “What If,” she continued, “really resonated deeply with me. I confided in David that I was attempting to channel Jenny’s spirit while recording it in an effort to pay proper homage to her intentions. I hope we achieved that during the session.”
The cover of the Dave & the Divas album, “Freedom.”
Amlen produced the album at his Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair; he discussed the business at length in this 2022 NJArts.net interview.
Amlen has recorded and played gigs with many of the Divas, and has also recorded with luminaries including David Bowie, Christian McBride, Tony Visconti, Jon Anderson, Nicole Zuraitis and Vernon Reid. He worked with Jenny for decades, and created this album as a way to keep her music and memory with us. The album’s gems include the anthemic “Freedom” and the spiritual song “Sister,” beautifully enhanced by Thiel’s voice. “Follow the voice inside you,” she sings.
“What If” is perfectly paired with Patrick’s calm, gentle voice; she sings about wanting to “quiet my busy mind” and stop wondering, “What if?”
Listening to Freedom, I was swept away on an intimate musical journey with well-crafted songs, creatively paired with the nostalgia of John’s tunes — all sung by gorgeous, distinctive voices.
I spoke with Amlen about his sister, this project, and his background as an engineer and producer.
Q. Can you tell me about your sister and your deep connection to her. When did she start writing songs and playing music?
A. Jenny and I were 4 ½ years apart and she showed an interest in music after I started playing piano and guitar in bands. She was always drawn to the singer/frontperson position whereas I was always more interested in the band positions (drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, horns, strings). We started working together after I opened my first big studio in Manhattan in 1987. Siblings in the studio can be a challenge and it took us many years before we developed a good working relationship.
MEG BEATTIE PATRICK
DAVID AMLEN
Q. Tell me about your prior collaborations with Jenny.
A. We did many recordings between 1987 and the mid 2000s, mostly songs she needed recorded and produced for noncommercial uses. At the time I was mostly consumed with growing the business and starting a family.
Q. Please describe your musical training and your transition to engineering.
A. I started piano lessons when I was 5 or 6. I realized a few years later that I could hear a song and pretty much play it back after one listen. When I was in middle school I started playing guitar, initially self-taught, and then a year or two later, formal lessons. I started playing in bands with my friends when I was in high school.
My first gig was for our block party playing covers of Chicago songs, switching between guitar and keyboards. My parents were very accommodating and allowed me to “take over” the living room and set up keyboards, and amps for guitar and keyboards. We even had occasional full band rehearsals there! I went to Oberlin College in Ohio and did a double major in mathematics (my parents insisted that I had skills I could fall back on) and music. … During my time at Oberlin, I played in bands and started recording them using a home studio cassette multi-track. … After graduating, I returned to New York and set up a home studio to record my songs and started recording for friends and, soon after, paid clients. I enjoyed working “the other side of the glass” and, after a few years, through the incredible generosity of my parents, was able to build a serious studio in midtown Manhattan. This helped hone my engineering and production skills and also taught me, through the school of hard knocks, many facets of business.
MEG BEATTIE PATRICK
From left, Julie Dobrow, Iris Schaffer Hall, Stacia Thiel and Cecilē Williams.
Q. What inspired you to produce Freedom?
A. This project started out as a one-off of two songs: “Freedom,” by my sister and originally recorded and produced by me, and “Skyline Pigeon,” an early Elton John song from Empty Sky (released in the United Kingdom in 1969 and in the United States in 1975). My wife Sheri (Kagan) always thought “Freedom” had an anthemic quality to it and we both could hear it being sung in stadiums in different languages. “Skyline Pigeon” was the closing song for Jenny’s album release show at The Bitter End in June of 2016 for her album Stories to Tell. Jenny and I had talked about doing a full band recording of “Skyline Pigeon” in the fall of 2016, but with the closing of my (New York) studio MSR in June (of that year) and her untimely death in October (of that year), this never happened.
Since starting my studio in Montclair, I recorded, mixed and produced some local bands and was taken by one of the singers, Cecilē Williams, who sang backup in The Lily Vakili Band. I asked her about doing both songs and she was into it. I also wanted to reimagine both songs with fresh arrangements.
I thought having five Montclair-based singers including Cecilē as the choir for the choruses would take the song to another level. I approached four other local singers — Iris Schaffer Hall, Julie Dobrow, Meg Patrick and Stacia Thiel — about being part of the choir chorus. They all agreed. After doing the initial sketches of both songs (recording scratch guitar and keyboard parts), I added final bass parts and drums, played by one of the studio’s engineers, Kevin Carrillo.
At some point during this process, the idea of redoing more Jenny and Elton songs seemed to make sense, so that the final product could be a full album rather than a single with two songs. Sheri and I sifted through the 20 songs from both of Jenny’s albums I produced and agreed on five that we felt had timely messages.
MICHAEL REITMAN
MEG BEATTIE PATRICK
Q. How did you select the vocalists for the songs? Did you pair their voices with the mood of the songs?
A. I asked each of the other singers about which songs they would want to do from Empty Sky, and Sheri and I decided which songs they would sound the best on, for Jenny’s songs. Luckily, none of the four others picked the same Elton songs.
As with the first two songs, I sketched out the format of the other eight songs, added final bass and drums, and then brought each of them in to record their final lead vocal parts. While we were recording, I also came up with ideas for harmony parts of background vocals to add to the arrangements.
All five of Elton’s songs needed to be transposed to different keys as Elton is a tenor and four of the singers are sopranos and one is an alto. Jenny’s songs worked well in their original keys, for the most part. The project started in late 2022 and was finished in August 2024.
Q. What is your connection to Empty Sky?
A. I always loved the song “Skyline Pigeon” and suggested to Jenny that it should close her album release show as an encore with just me on piano and her singing. I have been a lifelong fan of Elton’s music and Jenny heard this growing up and also became a fan.
I was so excited when Elton John recorded the Broadway show “Lion King” at my old studio Right Track Recording — which merged with Sound on Sound, my original New York studio. The Yamaha concert grand piano that Elton used is the one I used for most of the piano tracks on Freedom.
David Amlen and Jenny Amlen, in the ’80s.
Q. Did Jenny write the lyrics and you arranged the music?
A. Jenny wrote many songs throughout the years and typically would have a basic idea of the lyrics, chord changes and structure. I would then help her tighten the arrangements, change some chords to help songs flow better, change some melodies in subsequent verses to make melodies more interesting, and occasionally help her modify lyrics to convey the meaning better.
Q. How did you reimagine some of her songs?
A. The five songs we recorded all had great messages, some more apropos at this point in time than when she originally wrote them. For “Freedom” and “Sister,” both of which feature the choir chorus of all five singers, I wrote new sections which I felt helped make the songs more engaging.
Q. Did you reinterpret some of Elton’s songs?
A. These (the songs of Empty Sky) were Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s first releases and some of the arrangements were probably done more as glorified song demos than the actual final recordings. I changed sections, sometimes adding additional choruses (“Western Ford Gateway,” “Val-Hala”) where there was only one, omitting sections that I thought dragged on too long (“Empty Sky”), completely changing the character and instrumentation (“Skyline Pigeon”) or changing bass lines to change the mood (“Gulliver,” “Skyline Pigeon”). All in all, very different versions than the original recordings.
Q. I think this album reflects our strong Montclair music community — people coming together to celebrate your sister. Do you agree?
A. I wanted this to be a local project from Day 1. It was great to be able to have all five singers come together on this project and I am grateful that, after understanding the back story of Jenny, they all enthusiastically agreed to be part of this project. Having my studio located in Montclair undoubtedly made coordinating the recording schedules much easier.
Q. Tell me about the songs “Faith,” “Sister” and “Changing World.”
A. “Sister” is a song about female empowerment, which both Sheri and I thought resonated in today’s environment.
“Faith” speaks about having faith, which we also thought resonated very intensely today.
“Changing World” speaks about how time passes and those we love age. Very deep on many levels. I also feel this is the most ’80s song of the collection, which Jenny would have appreciated, having come of age in the ’80s, rather than, like me, in the ’70s.
David Amlen engineered Nicole Zuraitis’ Grammy-winning album “How Love Begins.”
Q. How has your studio evolved since my last interview with you in 2022?
A. Last year was pretty incredible, all things considered. A few of the highlights: I recorded some of the music for Francis Ford Coppola’s latest movie, “Megalopolis.” I also mixed the immersive Atmos version of Jon Anderson & the Band Geeks’ album True. And lastly, winning a Grammy (for engineering Nicole Zuraitis’ album How Love Begins) was a thrill. You do this for 40 years and who knows?
Q. What should we expect at the Outpost album release?
A. There will be two sets. The first set is The Divas, and will be similar to Light of Day shows where each singer performs one song, then the next, and so on, and then each performs a second song. The second set is Dave & the Divas. We’ll perform all 10 songs from the album, which will be for sale in CD format, in a different song order I feel is better for the live experience. Some of the songs will be extended to allow more of a classic rock vibe. There will also be an encore of two later, more familiar Elton John songs.
Q. How have your family members reacted to the album?
A. Overwhelmingly positive response so far. My mom has heard premastered versions of the songs and enjoyed them; I think it’s tough for her to hear her late daughter’s songs being performed by people she has no connection with. Many of my family will be at the show.
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