Press
2006
P.F. Sloan -- new album "Sailover"
"It took us 40 years to get together," Sloan says with a laugh, referring to his collaboration on two songs with lyricist Steve Kalinich. "Steve wanted to work with me back in 1966, but it didn't happen. Not long ago, he asked if I'd put music to a meditation book he'd composed. It was 250 pages of blank verse. I said, 'I'll do it if I can find one magic chord that holds everything together.' "I got the guitar, found this diminished chord and reworked the verses so they rhymed. I called Steve and said, 'You're in luck.' " The meditation became the touching ballad "If You Knew."
Prior to 2006
Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney Sing The Words of Stephen Kalinich
Poet and lyricist Stephen Kalinich has written the lyrics to not one but two songs for the new Brian Wilson album 'Getting In Over My Head' and one of those songs is a duet between Brian and Paul McCartney.
The McCartney song is titled "A Friend Like You."
" was almost speechless and very touched and moved" Stephen tells Undercover News about his reaction when he heard the finished playback of the song. "Tears came gushing out because it is such a dedicated sweet, kind friendship. It is an honor, a dream come true, a thought for the world and I see Brian and Paul together."
The song started out like this. "Brian gave me a melody one night with no ideas and I put it in my car tape deck" he says. "I started playing it over and over and the words to a lyric or poem I had in my heart for a few months started forming around the music. It all started to come together. I started crying in the car. It was a breath taking moving experience".
The song was completed by the end of his journey. "By the time I got to my house the entire lyric to match almost each note was intact and complete. It was miraculous. I called Brian on the phone and sang it to him. He loved it".
It was Brian's wife Melinda who suggested Paul McCartney for the song. "I think he did a little demo at home and then he and Melinda (probably Melinda) somehow said it is a good song for Brian and Paul".
That worked for Stephen. He had met Paul before through a mutual friend. "Paul I love" he says. "I met Heather a few years back at Adopt a Minefield. Cameron Crowe introduced me".
His friendship with Brian goes back decades. "I love Brian like a brother. Beyond his music his soul is so kind and good. His consciousness is sweet".
Stephen's other song on the album is 'You Touched Me'. 'Getting' In Over My Head' will be released in June.
By Paul Cashmere
09/11/2001 -- Stephen Kalinich, with whom P.F.
Sloan has collaborated on many recent compositions, is currently appearing
on Sundays at a club called The Mint (6010 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles
CA 90035), performing spoken word with Ivan Neville and Bernard Fowler.
The show opened like no other. A poet (!) stood at the microphone, reciting florid prose-poetry, while P. F. played in the background. The entry of the vocal was perfectly timed, in mood and tempo.
The poet (Stephen Kalinich) turned
out to be Sloan's collaborator, who had co-written many of the lyrics we
were to hear during the next hour and a half. I can only guess at some
of the titles of the songs, but the opening number "Poisson Chinois" was
the type of song that any other performer would choose to close his show,
such was the strength of the combination of poetry and singing. Next, a
surprise - the Beatles song "And Your Bird Can Sing," before P. F. left
the piano to complete the show on a chair with a guitar. The delicate atmosphere
of the acoustic set...
"He was creating how to play the piano at the same time
he was creating the composition," explains Stephen Kalinich who wrote lyrics
for Dennis [Wilson's] first compositions in 1967 [ "Little Bird" ] and
for "Rainbows" on Pacific Ocean Blue. "That's the innocence and the approach
he brought - a freshness and a childlike quality. A staid and trained musician
could not do what Dennis did."
~ The
Observer UK ~