Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening

Last updated
Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening
Shoulders.jpg
Studio album by
Ray Lynch
ReleasedSeptember 28, 1993
Recorded1989–1993
Genre Classical
Adult alternative
Length44:16
Label Windham Hill Records
Producer Ray Lynch
Ray Lynch chronology
No Blue Thing
(1989)		Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening
(1993)		 Ray Lynch: Best Of, Volume One
(1998)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [1]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [2]

Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening is Ray Lynch’s fifth and final studio album. It reflects Lynch's classical background and features performances by members of the San Francisco Symphony. [3] The album was released after Lynch signed with Windham Hill Records. [4] It peaked at #1 on Billboard 's "Top New Age Albums" chart. [5]

Raymond "Ray" Lynch is an American guitarist, lutenist, keyboardist, and composer. He began his musical career in 1967 by performing in The Renaissance Quartet in New York City before leaving in 1974 and giving up his musical career. During his hiatus, Lynch studied with his spiritual teacher, Adi Da, who would ultimately encourage him to return to music. Lynch released five albums during the 1980s and 1990s, including Deep Breakfast, No Blue Thing, and Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening. Initially producing his music independently, Lynch eventually worked with Music West. After Lynch sued and left the company, Lynch joined Windham Hill in 1992 before retiring in 2000. Lynch has won three Billboard awards.

San Francisco Symphony symphonic orchestra

The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra is resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the City's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Since 1995, Michael Tilson Thomas has been the orchestra's music director. Tilson Thomas is scheduled to conclude his tenure as the orchestra's music director in 2020, when Esa-Pekka Salonen is scheduled to become the orchestra's next music director.

Windham Hill Records Record label

Windham Hill Records was an independent record label that specialized in instrumental acoustic music. It was founded by guitarist William Ackerman and Anne Robinson in 1976 and was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

Contents

Production

According to Keyboard , the album was originally slated to be released "during the first quarter" of 1992. [6] In an interview with the Vancouver Sun , Lynch revealed some of the struggles he faced while creating the album, and said that it had taken four years to create. In regards to its delayed production, he said, "That's the problem when you love what you make, if you love what you make and care about it, you're going to struggle with it until its right." [7]

Keyboard is a magazine that originally covered electronic keyboard instruments and keyboardists, though with the advent of computer-based recording and audio technology, they have added digital music technology to their regular coverage, including those not strictly pertaining to the keyboard-related instruments. The magazine has its headquarters in San Bruno, California.

<i>Vancouver Sun</i>

The Vancouver Sun is a daily newspaper first published in British Columbia on 12 February 1912. The paper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. It is published six days a week, Monday to Saturday.

Reception

Debbie Stover of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch praised the album for its use of instruments to recreate the sound of both the Baroque and Renaissance eras while also "managing to sound fully modern." Stover concluded her review by calling it "easily one of the year's best." [8] Elisabeth Le Guin of The New York Times praised the album for evoking "the highly colored emotions of the classical tradition" and described the album's sound as "pop Dvorak". [9]

<i>St. Louis Post-Dispatch</i> daily newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major regional newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, serving St. Louis City and County, St. Charles County, the Metro East and surrounding counties. It is the only daily newspaper in the city. The publication has received 19 Pulitzer Prizes.

Baroque music Style of Western art music

Baroque music is a period or style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, Tomaso Albinoni, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich Schütz, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel.

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is vocal and instrumental music written and performed in Europe during the Renaissance era. Consensus among music historians has been to start the era around 1400, with the end of the medieval era, and to close it around 1600, with the beginning of the Baroque period, therefore commencing the musical Renaissance about a hundred years after the beginning of the Renaissance as it is understood in other disciplines. As in the other arts, the music of the period was significantly influenced by the developments which define the Early Modern period: the rise of humanistic thought; the recovery of the literary and artistic heritage of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; increased innovation and discovery; the growth of commercial enterprises; the rise of a bourgeois class; and the Protestant Reformation. From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular, the polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school, whose greatest master was Josquin des Prez.

Track listing

Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening includes the following tracks. [1]

No.TitleLength
1."Over Easy"4:53
2."Her Knees Deep in Your Mind"6:18
3."Passion Song"5:24
4."Ivory"5:38
5."Mesquite"6:18
6."Only an Enjoyment"7:16
7."The Vanished Gardens of Córdoba"8:22

Personnel

All music composed, arranged and produced by Ray Lynch.

Keyboard instrument class of musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, which are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or municipal buildings.

Flute musical instrument of the woodwind family

The flute is a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening. According to the instrument classification of Hornbostel–Sachs, flutes are categorized as edge-blown aerophones. A musician who plays the flute can be referred to as a flute player, flautist, flutist or, less commonly, fluter or flutenist.

Alto flute type of flute

The alto flute is a type of Western concert flute, a musical instrument in the woodwind family. It is the next extension downward of the C flute after the flûte d'amour. It is characterized by its distinct, mellow tone in the lower portion of its range. It is a transposing instrument in G, and uses the same fingerings as the C flute.

Production

Audio mixing (recorded music) audio mixing to yield recorded sound

In sound recording and reproduction, audio mixing is the process of combining multitrack recordings into a final mono, stereo or surround sound product. In the process of combining the separate tracks, their relative levels are adjusted and balanced and various processes such as equalization and compression are commonly applied to individual tracks, groups of tracks, and the overall mix. In stereo and surround sound mixing, the placement of the tracks within the stereo field are adjusted and balanced. Audio mixing techniques and approaches vary widely and have a significant influence on the final product.

Charts

Chart (1993)Position
Billboard New Age Albums [5] 1

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References

  1. 1 2 "Nothing Above My Shoulders But the Evening - Ray Lynch | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
  2. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2006). Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Muze. p. 384. ISBN   0195313739.
  3. ↑ "New Age Leaders". CD Review. 10 (12): 24. August 1994. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
  4. ↑ Christman, Ed (14 November 1992). "Windham Hill". Nielsen Business Media, Inc. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
  5. 1 2 "New Age Music: Top New Age Albums Chart". Billboard. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  6. ↑ "Career Update". Keyboard. 17 (8): 25. August 1991. New ager Ray Lynch will have a new album out during the first quarter of '92.
  7. ↑ Strachan, Alex (October 19, 1993). "Love for music can be deadly". The Vancouver Sun . p. E2. His latest album Nothing Above My Shoulders but the Evening was four years in the making, and it almost killed him. "That's the problem when you love what you make," he says. "If you love what you make and care about it, you're going to struggle with it until its right.
  8. ↑ Stover, Debbie (December 16, 1993). "Recordings". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. pp. 4G. The album features many instruments - guitars and keyboards plus wind, string and brass - and uses them all to create a sound that's strongly evocative of the Baroque and Renaissance eras, while at the same time managing to sound fully modern. Lynch plays both guitar and keyboards with quiet expressiveness and almost never allows the music to swell with too much sentimentality. This album is easily one of the year's best.
  9. ↑ Le Guin, Elisabeth (July 31, 1994). "By Any Other Name, It Would Sound Sweeter". The New York Times .
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