A Presbyterian Minister celebrated his 77th birthday by doing something a little out of the ordinary - releasing a country album. Colin Gordon-Farleigh releases Friends and Heroes, his latest album of bluegrass and country music on Monday 17th August and is hoping that he can continue the success he has enjoyed with his previous releases and bring happiness to others through his music.

Friends and Heroes is Colin Gordon-Farleigh’s third album release and contains a selection of original compositions along with cover versions of some of Colin’s favourite songs. The title of the album comes from the duets featured on it, all of them are with friends although some started off as heroes. The album combines Colin’s passion for country and bluegrass music and unique songwriting skills.

Colin’s route into country music has been somewhat unorthodox. He began writing poetry at an early age and has had several collections of poetry published over the years. As an ordained Minister in the Presbyterian Church of Wales, he has also written hundreds of hymns & worship songs. In 2006, Colin wrote the lyrics to what became his first song, a classical crossover love song titled, “When I’m With You”, which was recorded in 2008 as the title song to an album of songs in the same genre.

He later acted on his passion for country and bluegrass music and began writing songs in this style, many of these were successfully recorded by other artists.

During a trip to Nashville in 2017, Colin went to a studio on Music Row to be present whilst several of his songs were recorded by other artists. That same evening, as guests of the studio boss, he and several friends went to a Country Music venue and this saw him on the other side of the microphone at an open mic night and, thanks to the amazing reaction he received, that is where his recording career began. Since that fateful night, Colin has now recorded three albums and has received much praise for his music, including Bluegrass artist of the year in 2018 & 2019 at the prestigious Akademia Music Awards. This year he was presented with an Artist Vision Award for his services to the music business and to the furtherance of Bluegrass music in particular.

On the release of his latest album, Friends and Heroes, Colin comments, “I am delighted to celebrate my birthday with the launch of my latest album. The idea of the album was to record the songs of some of my country music heroes, stars like Jim Reeves, Slim Whitman and Hank Snow, and package them together with a mixture of my own songs and classic traditional country songs sung as duets with some of my friends from Nashville.

“The singers who join me on the album are Jimmy Payne, a veteran multi-million selling songwriter and artist; Cindy Hall, a well-seasoned performer from Nashville; Sandy Smolen, a songwriter who has been involved in most aspects of the music business as well as being an artist himself; Brian ‘The Hat’ Duckworth, an artist originally from the UK Midlands, now a singer in Austria and Ernie Rowell. The latter not only owns the studio on Music Row where I record, but is also producer on all of my albums. Ernie was bass guitarist with the legendary George Jones for many years and also worked for Mel Tillis, Stonewall Jackson and Ray Price, all names to be conjured within the country music world. When recording, I only work with the best musicians to produce an authentic Bluegrass Country sound.”

Friends and Heroes is released on Monday 17th August on Sheer Joy Music on the SJM label and is available from iTunes, Amazon, Spotify & all major digital music sites, and also from https://sheerjoymusicstore.com/product-category/artists/colin-gordon-farleigh/

ENDS

For further information on Colin and his music, and a selection of images, please click HERE

To listen to Friends and Heroes, please click HERE

For further press enquiries, or to arrange an interview with Colin Gordon-Farleigh, please contact Stephen Burton

Email - [email protected]
Phone - 07527 567268