It turns out that I love a story, whether a true one, or an imagined one. Most of my songs tell a story of some nature and many of them are true. I’ve always loved music and played music. I’m from a musical family and so grew up singing, my degree is in music. In the last few years, I came to writing songs and that came about through my ukulele playing. There’s something about the sound of the instrument that lends itself well to composing as well as performing.
My EP Paths & Stories is a collection of five stories told through song, with the ukulele as the primary instrument for both composing and the performance. There’s something really powerful in telling stories through song and something challenging in the process, of how to make the lyrics, melody and accompaniment all come together in expressing this person’s life in no more that three verses, how to do justice to what needs to be said and how to create something to engage the audience.
Paths and Stories is an eclectic collection of insights into the lives of five individuals – from a real-life World War 1 conscientious objector and a seventeenth-century pioneer of women’s education, to the enchanting – or enchanted – figure at the centre of a Victorian painting which hangs in Port Sunlight’s Lady Lever Art Gallery.
Through this EP, I enjoyed working with Jon Lawton who produced it, at his Liverpool recording studio Crosstown Studios. It’s great to see the different layers of a song emerge into a final recording and to hear someone else’s ideas as part of that.
The reason I wanted to release an EP was to have good quality recordings of my music, that people could take home and listen to, think about – and, I hope, enjoy!
Paths and Stories is released 28th March, with a launch event at 81 Renshaw Street, Liverpool. Tickets available through Skiddle.
EP available to pre-order from mid-March from alisonbenson.com
Twitter: @alisonbensonuke
Instagram: Alison_Benson_Music
Facebook: Alison Benson Music
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