release Archives - CRAIG WESTWOOD

In Progress

Craig — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 12:44:00 +0000

People who know me well, know that the music never stops really. There’s always something that I’m pursuing towards the next song or the next instrumental, whether that’s learning a new plugin, getting to grips with a new piece of recording equipment, just practicing a tricky new piece of music ready to record or play live, or simply just all of the above.

On the recording front, I’ve been putting together the next new release, which is a compilation of four songs from the partnership with my friend, the late John Ward Helliwell. These are very near finished now, just some sleeve notes and visuals to sign off with John’s family, and to release them out into the world as an EP.

John wrote the words in the late 80s, when we both worked in Huddersfield, and we used to commute to town on the same bus from our digs near Denby Dale. Here our discussions began about music and my songs in progress, and it was here that he offered to take on some of my more ‘difficult’ pieces.

The saddest part of this though, is that I can’t talk to John and include his version of events on the sleeve notes, and perhaps gain more insight into the deeper meanings behind each of the songs he wrote. I have interpreted them, of course, when I came up with the music, and so they stand up for themselves, to some extent, but it would have been good to hear his back-story also.

Coming very very soon…

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(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down

Craig — Fri, 30 May 2025 00:15:00 +0000

‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’ started it’s life instrumentally in 1986. I had in mind a two-part guitar piece and it progressed out of jam sessions with a friend I’d met whilst working at Huddersfield’s Electronic Arts Workshop, Colin Ramsden, who I was trying to start a band with at the time. I came up with the claw-and-slap guitar riff, and at one point he jammed along with a little repeating section using some picked harmonics, which appealed to me.

I can’t remember now what Colin’s version was like, we made no recordings of those little jam sessions, and so when I did get chance to do my own recording of the track some time later at Rick Cocker’s home-studio, I had worked out my own version of the picked harmonic, but for me, it was a finger-picked pattern.

Having recorded the backing tracks, and adding a synth bass-line and drum machine, I had little idea where to take this. I had a melody, and a hook for the chorus: ‘Don’t hurry, slow down, slow down,’ but little else for the rest of the song. I played a few of my demo tracks to my old college friend and writer, John Helliwell, including ‘Slow Down’, and he was keen to have a go at helping me finish it. Within a week or two he had something, and the verses were formed. I used my hook and added a pre-chorus, and we had the song.

Over the years, I’ve had two or three versions of ‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’ in demo form, either on cassette, as it was originally, and then later on CD and digitally, but nothing made it beyond this point.

Fast forward 37 years or so…

I knew I wanted to do something with the song, but it was my daughter Amy who sparked it all off again. She came across to us in December 2023 for Christmas, and I did a little set for friends at a gathering at home. Amy said she’d been working on a harmony for ‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’, and could we have a go at singing it. We played and sang it for our small audience unrehearsed, and it went down a storm. It was then I realised it was ready to do another, more polished version.

I had already part-recorded a slimmed-down version of the song, with two acoustic guitars, and added a bass-line and percussion in Spring 2024. Amy agreed then to come across for an early Summer break in late June/early July and did her vocal for me during that week.

What astounded me was that Amy took to recording very easily. She hadn’t used a studio mic before, or recorded using DAW software either, but adapted very quickly, wasn’t phased by any of the repetitiveness of the comping process, and could stay on pitch like a pro. It made the whole session very enjoyable.

If anything, other issues got in the way of my finishing the song. I released ‘Wry Smile’ back in October ’24, and then we had family health issues to deal with. Claire lost her Dad in December, a long journey with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and then her Mum was seriously ill too. We went back to the UK for Christmas and to support the family through crisis, and so my planned releases went on hold for a while.

On the 29th December Amy and I did get chance to shoot video scenes in Ealand for ‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’. I had this idea to try and portray the ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ themes of the song using slow-and-fast frame videoing. It was difficult but fun filming all my scenes singing at double-speed, and Amy’s at half-speed. The result you’ll see for yourself on the video.

Our test-shots originally were made indoors with a plain-background, which just didn’t work. It was only when we shot outdoors, with the Ealand sea of wind-turbines behind us, did it help and I think aided the fast and slow element of it.

The sad conclusion to this story though is that we learned in early January that our good friend and collaborator on this song, John Helliwell, died on December 31st, after a short battle with cancer. Our song therefore has become a tribute to him and his generous and creative spirit.

We miss you, John.

There are a few more songs that John and I collaborated on, which I intend to release sometime in the near future. More news about this soon.

‘(Don’t Hurry) Slow Down’ is out NOW.

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What’s behind the… WRY SMILE?

Craig — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 03:58:00 +0000

I wrote Wry Smile in 2017, after I’d seen enough of the antics of a certain Donald Trump who was in the White House at the time.

To be honest, I was more than a little concerned as to why he’d been elected in the first place. Then, I saw such a parallel with our own situation in the UK at that time: incompetent right-wing leaders, too guided by lining their own pockets and those of their friends, than that of the welfare of the average person.

That certainly showed itself in the few years that followed. Especially when covid-19 hit the UK shores. Especially when Britain decided to leave the European Union, fueled by propaganda that preyed on racist fears and not looking at the reasons why the EU was set up in the first place: to bring about Peace in Europe.

As Trump began putting the walls up, so Britain retreated from the strength of a united Europe, and used it’s island seaboard as it’s wall. And so both America and Britain became weaker as a result.

I didn’t use names in this song, but it was directed at ALL politicians, that misuse the powers of the positions they’re elected to, and use their office to further their own selfish interests and not those of the people.

And Donald Trump, Wry Smile speaks directly to YOU.

I sincerely hope that the US electorate votes for the Voice of Reason, and not for the self-serving billionaire, you know what I mean?

Good luck, America. The World is watching.

Wry Smile is out NOW. Have a listen, or watch it here

ADDENDUM:

It’s Nov. 26th. Trump has been re-elected. It beggars belief as to why the voting public in America would support such a man, but he’s there, and I’m sure soon enough we’re going to see – again – what kind of a President he is.

For the song Wry Smile, I guess it has another four years of validity. I should be grateful, but I was rather hoping Kamala Harris would be the first Female U.S. President. America clearly isn’t ready to advance that much – yet.

Yes, Donald Trump can soon enough sit smug and smiling as he wreaks his own brand of havoc from behind the desk in Washington’s Oval Office.

And what’s behind the Wry Smile?

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Thinking On Your Own – Part 2

Craig — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 21:08:00 +0000

For a while now I’ve been a (somewhat quiet) member of a community called “Produce Like a Pro“, run by the Los Angeles-based producer Warren Huart. I joined PLAP (as it’s affectionately known) primarily to continue to improve my recording and mixing, and thus end up with a set of quality songs for my first album.

After the upload of my song ‘Thinking On Your Own’ onto YouTube and Facebook, I was contacted by fellow PLAP-er Tim Ellifritz, based out in Johnsburg, NY, who loved the song and asked if we could collaborate and he would produce and release it. Well…. what do you say to that!

Of course, it was “yes!”

In just one day, Tim had a group of guys ready to record and work on the song, and by then, Tim’s selected drummer, Patrick Peeters, in Belgium, had made a guide track from my Youtube video, all set to 162bpm for the rest of the guys to record in their DAWs.

On the 28th March I had my first Zoom meeting call with Tim, and his fellow American Dave Merkel from Billings, MT. We got on really well, and a ‘lockdown project’ was formed. Tim had managed to recruit Dave, then Patrick, and a bass player from the Netherlands, Peter Süoss. We became a band of producers.

This just shows the power of the internet and the fact that you can work with a bunch of guys you’ve never met in person, and come up with something incredible.

Over the lockdown period, each of us went to work on our respective parts: I recorded two acoustic guitar parts for a stereo mix and five vocal tracks – one lead and two-part stereo backing vocals, plus some keyboard vocal ‘ooooohs’; Patrick recorded several tracks of drums; Peter’s track used his fretless bass; Tim provided lead guitar and a rhythm electric track, plus a low vocal; then Dave provided an organ track and some strings also.

We each decided at the outset to film our performances, for the video to follow.

Building the song involved a couple of drafts from each of us, then discussion via Zoom. We shared our tracks on the cloud, and each of us could mix according to taste and add things on top for the band to hear and review. What was most fascinating to me was how different each of our mixes were. Here we had five different versions of the same song.

By July we had the song finished. We decided that we’d ask another PLAP-er, Sara Carter, to do the final mix from our tracks. Sara had years of prior experience with the BBC, and had recently started her own mixing business ‘Music Mix Pro‘, and the result was amazing.

Release date was July 31st. We spent a great deal of time building up to the release, with the creation of a Facebook group, and a number of promo ‘reminders’ that appeared on both Facebook, and our other respective channels elsewhere. I produced a load of graphics and visuals for the release, and the other guys worked on video material too for our new fans. In the 11 day build up to release day, we’d got over 300 followers.

We’ve enjoyed the entire process so much, from start to finish, that we are determined to have a go at some more music together. We’ve also started a P.ii video channel with an episode each Friday, called ‘Friday is P.ii-Day’. I’m not sure how long we can sustain this series, but we’re certainly going to give it our best shot.

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Thinking On Your Own – Part 1

Craig — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 14:19:00 +0000

March 19th. The UK was going into lockdown with rising cases of Covid-19 being reported. The media frenzy at the time was on how people were panic-buying in the shops, with various photos and video footage of people stockpiling shopping trolleys full of toilet roll, pasta, bread, milk and other groceries, and in doing so, depriving the most vulnerable in our society.

I was angry at what I saw, and I felt I had to write a song about it. Sure, people were scared, none of us really knew how Covid was going to affect or change our lives. But, depriving others at a time of real need, was selfish and unnecessary. Global crises really show us how base and primitive the human race can still be.

It didn’t really matter to me that the song was probably just going to be labelled as ‘another from the glut of songs written in lockdown’; it was heartfelt, and I felt strongly about its message. I wanted to get across that, in isolation, we are still able to think of others and should be concentrating on them, not thinking on our own. It was asking people to consider: “Who else can I help?”

If, in listening to this song, it makes one person think again, and decide not to act selfishly, giving the more vulnerable person a chance – just for once – then it will have done it’s job.

I posted it on Facebook. I wasn’t sure what to expect really, but I asked people to like and share, and a few people did. Thank you to those who did, because what happened next was a complete surprise.

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