Following on from the success of ‘Bad Bad Love’ – incredible review by The Lumineers on Facebook and Instagram, feature in Clash Magazine, opening track of Chicane’s Sunset radio show to 6 million listeners worldwide, feature in TMRW and Made In Shoreditch magazines. David Baron and Donna Lewis up their game with a unique take on Kate Bush’s mega-hit ‘Running Up That Hill’
“Running Up That Hill has one of the most meaningful lyrics: “There’s so much hate for the ones we love”. It is a stark reality for many who are in troubled relationships. We just do not understand each other. The bittersweet plea to God to swap places is perfectly sung by Donna Lewis. The string quintet, modular synthesizers, and vocals morph between sweet and strident, sonorous and dissonant. There is never a true resolution, only a musical ladder that is climbed without ever reaching the top. You can see the clouds – but you can not touch them. The wish can not be granted musically or otherwise. It is in this yearning that truth is revealed by Kate Bush – it is up to us to try to understand each other.”
– David Baron
“I’ve been a huge Kate Bush fan for years so when David suggested we record a cover of Running Up That Hill with just strings and vocals I was all in! The powerful lyrics always got me thinking: what if we could swap roles with other people? What if we were to walk in someone else’s shoes? If we could, perhaps we would find a lot more compassion for each other. David and I wanted to give Running Up That Hill a uniqueness that the song deserves. Starting out with a stark piano vocal performance, David then wrote a string and synth arrangement around the vocals to create a beautiful balance of simplicity and complexity.”
– Donna Lewis
“This song’s arrangement is so gorgeous, the starkness of the fragile yet ferocious vocal delivery against the mournful but hopeful string arrangement. Donna Lewis is the singer, most notably known from her 90’s pop hit ‘I Love You, Always Forever,’ and shows a very different side of her voice in this song. Her melody and lyrics are absolutely haunting against David Baron’s string arrangement. To be able to keep the attention of the listener with such few elements is extremely difficult and it’s just another reason this song is inspiring to me”
Jeremiah Fraites, The Lumineers
David Baron clients include Shawn Mendes, The Lumineers, Lenny Kravitz, Jade Bird, Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst and is scoring a feature film starring Laurence Fishburne (Gregory Colbert’s follow up to Ashes And Snow).
Donna Lewis wrote and performed ‘I Love You Always Forever’ the highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 by a Welsh artist since Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ in 1983.
‘I Love You Always Forever’ written and performed by Donna a global hit in 1996 and hundreds of millions of streams to date. ‘Love Him‘ topped Billboard Dance Chart in 98 no.1.
‘I could be the one‘ topped Austrian charts.
‘Anastasia’ duet with Richard Marx gold in the US.
Worked on The Art of Noise’s The Seduction of Claude Debussy with Trevor Horne.
Collaborated with Italian producers Souled Out, co-writing the track ‘Take me Out’ which stormed to Ibiza success in 2000.
The single ‘Shout’ from “in the pink “ album became a top 5 radio song in Southeast Asia and was also featured in an Irish independent movie ’32A’.
2012 wrote and collaborated with the progressive house duo Project 46 and DubVision and released ‘You and I’ on Spinnin’ Records which reached top 5 on the Beatport chart.
Recently on Delilah Derbyshire Appreciation Society ‘record, she brought the sun’ ambient synth track.
About Donna Lewis
A celebrated chanteuse and songwriter with a signature breathy, voice, Donna Lewis soared to fame in 1996 with the dance-pop classic “I Love You Always Forever.” People around the globe still have boundless affection for the smash-hit song, but the Welsh native is an artist of many dimensions, equally at home with catchy pop tunes as she is with jazz, acoustic, electronica, and beyond.
Lewis’s most recent album, Brand New Day (2015), is a striking departure from anything she’s done before. Produced by her longtime friend and collaborator David Torn, who arranged all the songs, the album redefines her as an artist with its jazz-inflected cover tunes and genre-busting original songs. Along with the open quality that her fans love, Brand New Day has an inviting intimacy complemented by the progressive jazz musicians Ethan Iverson (piano), Reid Anderson (bass), and Dave King (drums).
Lewis grew up in a musical family in Cardiff, Wales. Her father was a self-taught jazz-style pianist and guitarist. A fan of jazz singers including Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme, as well as piano rock king Elton John, she started piano herself at age 6 and began writing her own songs at 14. Classically trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Lewis majored in flute and piano (she’d become an honorary fellow of the school in 2000). Upon graduating, she spent a year teachers training in Sussex and then moved to Birmingham, playing solo shows and pairing with local bar bands. Lewis went on to hone her unique style in piano bars across Europe, developing a loyal fan base and retreating to her home studio to write songs and record demos.
A demo of “I Love You Always Forever” found its way to Atlantic Records Chairman Doug Morris, who was so enamored with the tune that he flew Lewis to New York to meet him and offered her a deal on the spot. Featured on her 1996 debut album, Now in a Minute, the breakthrough hit remained at the number two spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for nine consecutive weeks and ultimately reached platinum status. The record was an international sensation, and “I Love You Always Forever” became the first song ever to get a million spins on American radio and the third best-selling tune in the history of Atlantic Records. On the heels of this success, doors of opportunity opened—from cameo television appearances to the chance to record “At the Beginning,” a duet with Richard Marx on the soundtrack of the animated 1997 film Anastasia.
Lewis’s second album for the label, Blue Planet (1998), spawned two hits including “Love Him,” which topped the Billboard dance charts. While on hiatus to start a family, she left her mark on such projects as The Art of Noise’s The Seduction of Claude Debussy; the all-star 2001 benefit album, Utopia; and a collaboration with Italian producers Souled Out on the cowritten track “Take me O,” which stormed to Ibiza success in 2000. She also began her creative partnership with Torn, a guitarist and studio wizard known for his film scores (including Friday Night Lights and Lars and the Real Girl). In 2001, five electronically textured songs Torn and Lewis wrote and recorded for the Chute project were the most requested on L.A.’s beloved KCRW for three weeks running.
Next came the stripped-down acoustic sound of her independently produced 2002 album, Be Still, which marked a back-to-basics return to voice and piano-driven songs. This would point the way to Brand New Day—but first came Lewis’s high-energy 2008 album, In the Pink, produced by Gerry Leonard, the Irish guitarist known for his work with Bowie, which was praised for its “supremely undeniable Euro-style catchiness.” The single “Shout” became a top 5 radio song in Southeast Asia and was also featured in the Irish independent movie 32A.
In 2011 Lewis wrote the song “Follow my Way,” produced by David Lowe for the independent documentary Street Journeys, and in 2012 she collaborated with the progressive house duo Project 46 and DubVision to release “You and I” on Spinnin’ Records, which reached top 5 on the Beatport chart.
In 2015 Lewis and Torn began planning the Brand New Day project with executive producer Jeff Resnick. It was, said Torn, pure “kismet” that he and Lewis were able to get Iverson, Anderson, and King—also known as the trio The Bad Plus—for Brand New Day. The album powerfully reinvents cover songs including David Bowie’s “Bring Me the Disco King” and tunes by Neil Young, Damien Rice, and Chocolate Genius—and serves up two new Lewis originals, “Sleep” and “Brand New Day,” as well as a rapturous new version of “I Love You Always Forever.”
About David Baron
David Baron mixed The Lumineers amazing new song for the Game Of Thrones season 8 soundtrack Producer, arranger, mixer, engineer. David Baron works with The Lumineers, Shawn Mendes, Meghan Trainor, Lenny Kravitz, Peter Murphy, Simone Felice, Melanie De Biasio, Bat For Lashes, Jade Bird, Vance Joy, Matt Maeson, Lettie, Conor Oberst, and Phoebe Bridgers.
David provided synths, programming, production and mixing to ‘The Bride’ (Bat For Lashes) which was shortlisted for Mercury Music Prize 2016 alongside Bowie and Radiohead with Skepta ultimately getting gold. David arranged and conducted strings for Shawn Mendes on ‘Bad Reputation’ from the number 1 album in 65 countries ‘Illuminate Deluxe’. David arranged and conducted strings on Mendes follow up self-titled album. He played piano, organ and baritone saxophone on one of the biggest selling singles of all time (‘All About That Bass’ Meghan Trainor) alongside songwriter Kevin Kadish who David works with on numerous projects David performed on The Lumineers #1 Billboard Album ‘Cleopatra’ and has performed on mixed and produced the forthcoming 2019 follow up album. David scored their film Ballad Of Cleopatra. On The Lumineers forthcoming album David plays keys and mixed it. David has recently mixed an amazing new song by The Lumineers for the Game Of Thrones soundtrack.
He produced and co-wrote both ‘Strangers’ by fellow Woodstock artist Simone Felice and ‘Ninth’ with Peter Murphy. David mixed and mastered Melanie De Biasio ‘Blackened Cities’ which was Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards Track of The Year 2017 voted for the public including artists Solange, Kaytranada and Frank Ocean. David was hired by Motown Records to remix Smokey Robinson ‘Quiet Storm’. He worked with Roy Ayers on this remix which was released under the name Groove Boutique.
He was employed by Glassnote Records to develop Jade Bird from an unknown artist to the superstar she is becoming. Including musical directing and arranging strings for tv performances on Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert’s shows.
David has worked with Lenny for approximately 20 years. They took over the Hotel Edison recording studio with Henry Hirsch in 2001. David has arranged strings and programmed synths on Kravitz last 6 albums.
“New single ‘Bad Bad Love’ finds David Baron working alongside phenomenally successful vocalist Donna Lewis, resulting in something special.”
Clash Magazine“Being built up primarily of strings, analog synthesizers, and Lewis’ vocals, ‘Bad Bad Love’ is simple at its core. But it’s this simplicity that generates its effect and allows room for its charged lyrics.”
TMRW Magazine“Her vocal style is lilting and deeply reflective…”
BBC Music Magazine“One of many explosive rockers on Bird’s Simone Felice and David Baron-produced LP”
Rolling Stone“A masterpiece that will leave the listener with nothing but pure sober reflections.”
Earmilk
David Baron LINKS:
https://www.thedavidbaron.com/wp
https://www.facebook.com/EdisonMusicCorp
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3ZZxsC7f0fufApo1cm117d
https://www.instagram.com/davidofbaron
https://twitter.com/mrdavidbaron
Donna Lewis LINKS:
https://www.donnalewis.com
https://www.facebook.com/DonnaLewisMusic
https://twitter.com/donna__lewis
https://www.instagram.com/donnalewismusic
