We needed more Beautiful Mondays..
Once ‘Fearless’ was finished I pretty quickly decided that I wanted Beautiful Monday to be remastered in time for the launch. Not only had I sold out of hard copies the previous April on a gigging weekend in Bristol (during which I played 7 gigs and showcases in 2 days, including a gorgeous trip to Songs From The Shed), but also the original album had been done in such a hurry, there were things I wanted to correct before getting the next lot pressed. This was no mean feat. I had a copies of all the original sound files, but there were so many to sift through, it quickly became apparent that it would be more time effective to just re-record a lot of it. During 3 recording sessions, the keys were re-recorded by gorgeous pianist Natalie Birch, I re-recorded vocals and guitar parts, bass was re-done by Greg Mudd, and a lot of practical support was given by session studio musician Chris Wood. We had all the parts… Enter Tom Gibson.. Tom had the arduous task of remixing and mastering all of the tracks – some recorded in 2008, some last week, and making them into an album! I’d also included two new tracks – ‘Twinkle’ written for my Grandad’s funeral in 2006 which was not on the original pressing, and Mister Merchandise, a track that was intended for the Fearless album, but didn’t make the final track listing for practical reasons. These are both now on the Beautiful Monday remaster of 12 songs.
Working with a popular producer..
An incredibly popular, busy and hardworking producer, Tom had very little ‘free’ time to squeeze in this last minute job for me – actually he had no free time. So he gave up some sleep, and we spent a night in the studio putting it together. We had to get it done… and we did.. by 4am. 
Tom still paid unbelievable attention to detail (listen to the panning on the Beautiful Monday backing vocals with headphones..) given the time constraints and gave me an album I was thrilled to re-release to the world. We were home and in bed by 4.30am. In order to get the pressing turned around in time for the launch, we had to get the master disc to the engineers the next day, so we decided to drop it off. To Cheltenham. So up at 6am, back in the car, and the master disc was driven to their office so to be there when it opened. And the rest is history..
Double album launch..
Given the work by Tom, Natt, Greg and Chris some of the songs were totally revolutionised (listen to the new Sapphire Tears – a particular new favourite of mine! And also Natt’s keys on The Heron..) and made me feel like this was a double album launch. These people were so dedicated and working with them has been an absolute joy. Thank you all. @gibsounduk
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