As my partner and I were getting ready to ‘up sticks’ and relocate to southern Spain I knew I wouldn’t have the time to complete a new album, even though I was writing a whole load of new songs at the time. So, I decided to record simple piano and voice demos, done live in the studio, no overdubs, to ensure I didn’t forget any of the songs I was coming up with. Then when I got to Spain I listened to the demos as a framework for the string and vocal arrangements and got to work recording the album ‘proper’. The Pembrokeshire demos were then largely forgotten about.

A couple of years ago I did have a quick listen to a few of them again, as I wanted to feature a couple on the Making Tracks rarities compilation, but I concentrated on songs which had not had a previous release. The actual Navigate Home songs, however, I didn’t reinvestigate.

Then earlier this year, while tidying up my studio in a bit of spring-clean madness, I found the ‘Navigate‘ piano and voice demos again and decided this time to sit down with a cuppa and have a proper listen, i.e. listen to the tracks with a critical ear, rather than a cursory one while working out arrangements for the songs. And I was pleasantly surprised.

What I was expecting were quick workmanlike runthroughs of the songs, but instead found some (though I say it myself!) very good and strong ‘live in the studio’ performances. It was obvious that I was very happy with these songs and wanted to give them their best shot from the get-go. I played the CDs to Neil and he agreed with me that the recordings, once cleaned up a little, deserved a proper release of their own.

As well as the 13 ‘Navigate Home’ songs I also discovered two others I’d forgotten about. In Your Dreams is a short, jaunty number, rather in the style of my 1973 song, Third Man, (and likely got left off the album as it wasn’t in keeping with the romantic nature of the others); Genius is a six-and-a-half minute epic, which I probably decided against including on Navigate as I already had two lengthy ‘epics’ with A Wardrobe Dreams and Miss Ashton’s Disappointment.

Dry Run will be released on October 10th 2011, and on iTunes will sell at a nice competitive price of £3.49 for the first three months of release, then in January 2012 the price will revert to £4.49, which is the usual price I set all my compilations and rarities collections at on iTunes. I’m not sure what price it will sell on all the other download sites, but on CD, which you can purchase directly from us via ‘John’s Shop’, it will retail at £3.50, with no price rise at all. The CD will come in a nice slimline ‘single style’ jewel box with a two-page booklet note written by yours truly.

There will be a video for Genius going up on www.youtube.com/kidinabigworld (my You Tube channel) soon, and you can now preview that track on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/johnhowardsongs  - scroll down the page till you reach the Post for Genius, and press the Play icon to listen to it.

Hope you enjoy the album!

xx John

Ordering CDs direct from us is also a lot easier now, simply go to John’s Shop, decide which one(s) you want, fill out the Order Form and email it to us.

We’ve been spending the last few months putting videos together for my new John Howard YouTube Channel and we now have over 40 on there. The songs and videos cover all eras of my 35-year (plus!) career, starting with my first single, Goodbye Suzie, right up to tracks from my latest album, Exhibiting Tendencies. We’ve tried to feature some JH photos which you won’t have seen before, many not published until their inclusion in the videos. There’s the live footage of my first TV appearance in 1975 performing my then latest single, I Got My Lady (get all that diamante!), and some wonderful photos of April Ashley in the video for ‘Magdalena Merrywidow (For April Ashley)’.

You can view 6 of the videos in the Video Gallery – another new feature on this website – and if you fancy watching more just go to youtube.com/kidinabigworld – do leave a comment if you feel like it, it’s always good to know what people think of our efforts!

Earlier this year I released my tenth studio album, Exhibiting Tendencies, featuring 13 new songs which I’ve written over the last couple of years. I used a lot of new sounds and textures on this set, including percussion and guitar, and recorded everything acoustically and in real time. It meant the album took a long time to put together but I hope when you hear it you’ll think the time was well spent!

If you want to hear tracks from the new album you can stream them all at facebook.com/johnhowardsongs along with about 70 more tracks from various other albums and EPs which I’ve uploaded onto my Facebook page in the last few months.

I’m about to start work on my new recording project, working title is Return Visit. I am revisiting some of my older songs like Technicolour Biography and Hall of Mirrors, and giving them a new 2011 make-over. I will be concentrating on those songs which were recorded but never quite finished at the time, such as some of the Technicolour Biography songs, a few of the demo’d compositionsl from the ‘70s, and one or two from my live albums, which only had a piano/voice arrangement. They will be re-recorded from scratch, using all the facilities and instrumentation I now have to hand in my own small but perfectly formed studio in my basement at home. It will be fascinating to re-approach these ‘old friends’ and see what we make of each other now!

I have a spring 2012 date pencilled in for its release.

I’ll be writing regular blogs from now on, just keeping you up to date with what’s going in JH World!

Thanks for all your fabulous support over the years, it has kept me going and spurs me on to try out new challenges and ideas, knowing you’re there and will be interested in what I come up with gives me a great impetus to keep going when I’m in the midst of a particularly tricky overdub in my studio ‘down below’!

Volume 1, Sketching The Landscape: demos 1973–1979 and Volume 2, Creating Impressions: Singles & Rarities 1980–1990 have proved particularly popular on the download site e-music, the latter album receiving a five-star customer rating. Making Tracks features material John recorded for – but didn’t include on – albums such as The Dangerous Hours, Barefoot With Angels and Navigate Home, as well as unreleased tracks which were recorded for the EP Songs For The Lost & Found.

Also included are his versions of a Michael Weston King song and a Kevin Coyne classic. There’s even John’s interpretation of a song from the musical The Sound Of Music! John is as eclectic and unpredictable as ever! There is also the beautiful piano instrumental Theme For A Lost Love which is proving very popular on John’s MySpace music player at the moment. You can currently hear 8 tracks from the album on John’s My Space page.