Lighthouse Family - British music.

— which is dedicated to calm and relaxing music. While surfing the Internet, I came across the song “Lifted”, performed by the band Lighthouse Family.

I listened to several of their other compositions and decided to write a short article about this group. The songs of this duo are calm and relaxing, with beautiful and soft male vocals.

The musical creativity of these guys should appeal to those people who prefer quiet and... For those who are hearing about this band for the first time, I advise you to watch their video. I also posted several videos of this topic at the end of this biography article.

In 1993, two guys, Paul Tucker, a keyboard player, and Tunde Bayevu, a vocalist, created their first joint band, Lighthouse Family. This duo originated in the city of Newcastle, which is located in the UK.

Lighthouse family

Paul Tucker is from London. As a child, his family moved to Cambridge. After school he goes to college, like all ordinary teenagers. Travels through Germany and France, where he studies German and French. In his youth he loved it very much, he tried his hand at playing two instruments, keyboards and guitar.

Lighthouse Family - Postcard from Heaven

Musical work was given to him with great difficulty and after another failure, he decided to sell musical instruments and plunge headlong into college studies, because he was soon planning to defend his diploma. After receiving his diploma, he looks for work and finds one vacancy in one of the pubs in Newcastle. By that time, Paul had written the song "Ocean Drive", which was completely ready for listeners and recording in any of the recording studios.

He plays musical instruments beautifully, but there were some minor problems with his voice and he did not emerge as a singer (vocalist). Without thinking for long, a wonderful idea comes to his mind. Since he can’t sing, but plays well, he decides to find himself a vocalist who will sing his songs. Literally a few days later he puts out an advertisement looking for such a person, to which Tunde Bayevu responds.

Tunde Bayevu is a native Londoner. My father worked as an engineer. After he died, Bayevu's family was forced to return to their historical homeland in Nigeria. After finishing school, Tunde decides to return to Newcastle and continue his studies at one of its colleges. After finishing it, he gets a daily job like most of the inhabitants of our Planet.

Has certain vocal abilities. One of Tunde's friends finds an advertisement for a vocalist posted by Paul Tucker and tells his friend about it. This is how Paul Tucker and Tunde Bayevu met. After listening to the song “Ocean Drive”, Tunde decides to try himself in a new role as a singer and see what happens.

The story of the duet

The group was called Lighthouse Family, thereby wanting to show warmth, family well-being and hope for a wonderful future.

The duo's songs and music are easy to listen to and easy to digest, blending African-American and European styles. The guys have their own style. In November 1995, the song "Ocean Drive" could be heard on many UK radio stations. The duo’s second composition, “Lifted,” was liked by most listeners and took first place in many charts and television programs.

Lighthouse Family - Free (I wish I Knew How)

The work of a pleasant and melodic duet has spread throughout the world of lovers of calm and pleasant music (I am also their fan).

Their compositions contained some of the best elements of soul. In general, soul is the music of love and sex, but the duo sings about family values ​​and other similar topics that are based on the life experiences of themselves and those around them.

The Lighthouse Family team encourages everyone to believe in a bright future and live in harmony with the world around us. The duo, when creating any of the songs, always believed in them. In their compositions, the guys describe their lives, different situations, thoughts, feelings, experienced moments of happiness and sorrow.

In any of the songs you can hear warm notes of joy, peace of mind, hope for a bright future, positive qualities of people and simply be charged with positive emotions for the whole day. When I listen to their music, for some reason a smile appears on my face, and a feeling of calm, which is sometimes so lacking for an ordinary person in difficult situations in his life.

One of the songs, “Lifted,” talks about how the guys lived during a difficult time for them (every person has such moments in life). At most Lighthouse Family concerts, people who come listen to this composition while standing. “Lifted” is the anthem of a duet from England, in which you can hear moments of sadness and joy for everyone who listens to this song. Such melodies come from above, are recorded once, calling to live in peace and harmony, and continue to live in our hearts.

In custody

The Lighthouse Family project disbanded in 2003. Each of its participants took up their own developments. Tunde Bayevu is currently pursuing a solo career.

Paul Tucker left the duo and is now a member of The Orange Lights. During its existence, the group wrote and released 6 high-quality albums and about 13 singles.

Albums

• Ocean Drive — 1995
• Postcards from Heaven — 1997
• Whatever Gets You Through the Day — 2001
• Greatest Hits — 2002
• The Very Best of Lighthouse Family — 2003
• Relaxed & Remixed — 2004

Thank you for reading me on

Paul Tucker was born in London, where he lived until he was five, and then moved to Cambridge for several years. Later he went to college in Newcastle. Studying French and German, he lived in Paris and Berlin for several years before returning to Newcastle. Before college, he devoted a lot of time to music studies, but was not successful. Finally he sold all his equipment and devoted all his strength... Read all

Paul Tucker was born in London, where he lived until he was five, and then moved to Cambridge for several years. Later he went to college in Newcastle. Studying French and German, he lived in Paris and Berlin for several years before returning to Newcastle. Before college, he devoted a lot of time to music studies, but was not successful. Finally he sold all his equipment and devoted all his energy to completing his degree. After finishing his studies, he got a job in a Newcastle nightclub, in a bar. From his old dream, he had only one song left, which he could not forget - “Ocean Drive.” He could play it, he could record it, but he couldn't sing. And one day he took a pack of paper and glue...

Tunde Bayevu was also born in London. His father, an engineer, died when Tunde was five years old, and Tunde had to move to Nigeria. At the age of fifteen, he returned to England and went to college... in Newcastle.

After finishing his studies, he stayed in the city and got a job in a nightclub.

His friend once heard him singing along to a tape recorder, and by the way, he said that “Vocalist needed” notices were posted all over Newcastle.

This is how Tunde and Paul met. Tunde heard “Ocean Drive” and lost his head.

The duo took a long time to choose their name. They wanted to come up with something that would be associated with soulfulness, warmth, family, as well as hope, the transition from darkness to light. And so, Lighthouse Family is Paul Tucker and Tunde Bayevu.

After the first attempts at recording, a balanced mixture of European and African styles gave birth to "the very thing" that Paul Tucker was looking for. The demo tape sold out instantly, and in November 1995, "Ocean Drive" broke into the English charts. However, the success was moderate, and Polydor even excluded the recording from its catalogue. But the group's next single (“Lifted”) climbed upward with great persistence and reached the top five.

Since then, the Lighthouse Family have enjoyed the fruits of their labors in England, and when sales reached two million, America heard about them. Paul loved music since childhood. I listened to my father's records - Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Roberta Flack and the Doors. He played guitar in his friends' bands, and then mastered keyboards and bass. To this day he has no formal musical education, and he wrote his first song in 1985.

Lighthouse Family's music incorporates the best elements of soul, but soul is mostly about love and sex, while Lighthouse Family delve into other themes... They play soul based on life experiences. They are classified as pop groups, but is it not because pop music in simple language tells about what each of us has experienced at least once?

It’s good to dream, but it often happens that you can’t cope with turning them into reality alone. "I remember writing 'Ocean Drive' in 1989," says Paul. “And all this time I just believed in this song. Not into myself - I didn’t exaggerate my merits.”

Lighthouse Family encourages you to believe. If you believe, then everything will be fine. Paul may have traded his degree for a bar job, but there's another way to look at it: “I think it brought me back to reality. I realized that life was passing me by, and that if I dreamed of music, then it was time to actually do it.” “It doesn’t matter what you do in life, you are always limited by something, constrained by something. There is no such thing as perfect. This is what we are talking about. About four walls in which you try to improve your life. There is not a single person who has not encountered what we sing about.”

The song “Lifted,” for example, is about what kept the Lighthouse Family going during difficult times. Nowadays, when they perform it in concerts, Tunde prefaces it with the words: “Now we will play you the national anthem... Do you know what to do when the national anthem is played?” And if someone still doesn’t get up from the seat, then he won’t stay there for long. And don’t think that in this way they show disrespect for the national anthem. “Lifted” is a song that, again, wonderfully reflects the lows and highs of each of us. But Paul and Tunde say that such songs are not invented or forced. They come immediately in the full version from above. And they cannot claim their rights to it, because the midwife has no rights to the newborn.

“When you see 10,000 people singing this song from the stage, you realize that it is their song.”

Lighthouse(Lighthouse) is the debut album of the Canadian rock band of the same name, released in 1969 on RCA Victor(LSP-4173) in the USA, Canada, Germany.

STORY

Leader and founder of the group Lighthouse drummer Skip Prokop was a leading figure in Toronto's music scene in the early 1960s. You know how it happens - there are many groups, but a good drummer plays in several at once. Bands come and go, but drummers remain.

Prokop's first group was The Paupers, which attracted the attention of Albert Grossman, manager Bob Dylan , The Band And Janis Joplin and, with his help, made her way onto the US stage. . Let's just say that after two albums that were not commercially successful, Prokop left the group in 1968 and became a sought-after studio drummer, regularly shuttling between Toronto and New York, recording with Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana , Mike Bloomfield and etc.

One day, while returning home on a flight from New York to Toronto, Skip met Canadian musician Paul Hoffert on the plane, and they had many common ideas. Paul, who played keyboards and vibraphone and mastered synthesizers that were rare at that time, was an experienced musician who, at the age of 16, released his first jazz album. By the time he met Prokop, Hoffert was an accomplished film composer, arranger and performer, returning from New York after staging his musical in one of the off-Broadway theaters.

Prokop told Hoffert his long-time dream - to create a rock orchestra consisting of three quartets: a jazz brass section, a classical string section and a rock rhythm section. Hoffert liked the idea and promised his full support.

When recruiting musicians for a new project, Prokop was the first to hire guitarist Ralph Cole, whose playing he admired during the tour. The Paupers in Detroit. Skip convinced Ralph to quit his Detroit team. Thyme, pack up your belongings and move to Toronto. Cole arrived inspired and ready to immediately go on stage, but Prokop did not warn him that the group had not yet been assembled, the songs had not yet been written, and there was no money even to rent him a place to live. As a result, for the first months Cole lived with Prokop with his parents.

Time passed and the idea gradually took shape. Lighthouse gathered from friends, studio musicians and members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra - long-haired people gravitated towards long-haired people. We recorded the first demos - luxurious strings, jazzy brass parts and four-part harmonies, add here a wailing rock guitar, a funky Hammond B3 and a light dose of psychedelia - this is how it sounded Lighthouse at first. The result was like nothing else - a combination of rock rhythms, brilliant jazz improvisations and elegant classical arrangements. Nothing like your average three-minute pop songs. This demo recording.

On the advice of a mutual friend Lighthouse folk legends Richie Havens, the musicians brought their demo tape to the New York office of MGM Records. Twenty minutes later they had a recording contract and thirty thousand dollars in advance. Two days later they got a manager - Vinnie Fusco from the office of the same Albert Grossman.

Initial composition Lighthouse, who recorded their debut album, consisted of 13 people:

Skip Prokop – drums, vocals, band leader and lead songwriter
Paul Hoffert - keyboards and vibraphone, chief arranger
Ralph Cole - guitar, vocals
Grant Fullerton - bass, vocals
Pinky Dovin - lead vocals, percussion
Ian Gunter - violin
Don DiNovo - violin and viola
Don Whitton - cello
Leslie Schneider - cello
Freddie Stone - trumpet and flugelhorn
Arnie Chikoski - trumpet and flugelhorn
Howard Shore - alto saxophone
Russ Little - trombone

Debut concert Lighthouse took place on May 14, 1969 at the famous Toronto club Rock Pile. The group was represented by none other than the master of jazz Duke Ellington. The success was immediate and stunning. The public had truly never heard anything like it. Manager Vinny Fusco took the band to New York to record their debut album in the studio. Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland. Somewhere in the middle of the album's recording sessions, Fusco solemnly announced the news to the band: he had just signed the group to a cool contract with RCA Records worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prokop and Hoffert were initially shocked by this, because they already had a contract with MGM Records, but Fusco did not bat an eyebrow, concocting a deal where one company outbid the other. This happened in the 1960s.

The rest, as they say, is history. 300 days a year Lighthouse spent on tour. They played sold out shows in all the famous halls in America - Carnegie Hall, the Fillmore East, Fillmore West. They played with The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, The Doors, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, The Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell... The latter caused an embarrassment at the Atlanta festival, Mitchell left the stage with in tears, offendedly telling the audience: “I sang the same verse twice, but no one noticed.” because everyone was excitedly waiting to go on stage Lighthouse. At the famous rock festival on the Isle of Wight in 1970 Lighthouse were the only ones along with Jimi Hendrix, who was asked to perform there twice, although the participants included The Doors, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, The Who And Chicago. As stated on the band's website: "For a generation of Canadians, Lighthouse became the soundtrack to their lives."

Listening these days Lighthouse, one wonders why such a brilliant and unique group, familiar to every Canadian, did not expand widely beyond the borders of Canada and found itself in the shadow of their more famous American jazz-rock colleagues - Chicago And Blood, Sweat & Tears, which - frankly speaking - sound pale in the background Lighthouse. OLDIES-GOLDIES I am pleased and strongly recommend this inventive and virtuoso group to all lovers of the good old music of the late 1960s and early 1970s. You will find everything here: elements of hard rock, Beatles melodiousness, mystical psychedelia, sophisticated progrock and untied jazz.