Resolution - Politically Incorrect

In 1993ish, my friend Jon Herd was at a Dodger's game... wandering around the radio dial, he came across a faint broadcast of a Christian dance show - and so began my relationship with Scott Blackwell.

I tagged along with Jon as we started hanging out at the OC radio station with a motley bunch of Christian dance music fans for the live mix show.  I ended up contributing a track to Scott's Christmas album on Myx Records.

Scott went on to start N'Soul.  One Friday I drop by N'Soul's offices for a random pointless visit, and Scott tells me that his distributor is looking for some sort of promotional material for his next group/release - and he points a video camera at me and "interviews" me as the keyboard player.

That Monday he calls me up and asks me how many tracks I've got ready.  Confused, I astutely ask "bwah?"

And that's how I ended up working on Resolution, the third release for N'Soul.  I wrote five original songs for the project, adapted a Larry Norman tune ("Watch What You're Doing") and played organ and piano on a cover of "Tempted."

I delivered sample mixes of the work along with MIDI files... the tracks I contributed are almost exactly as I submitted them, with the addition of vocals and guitar.  (I've always wondered why I didn't end up with a "producer" credit based on the work I did, but, oh well!)

On "Tempted," Scott picked the tune late one night... we ran down to Tower Records, picked up a CD, I transcribed a chord chart, then he lay down a temp drum track and asked me to lay down a quick piano guide track - he told me he'd have me back later to do a "real" piano part, but the piano and organ you hear are the temp tracks I recorded an hour after learning the song.  (A little "inside baseball" for ya there!)

The vocals are credited to "Jeffery Lankford," aka Hans Ives, who worked in the business end of N'Soul and stepped in when another vocalist couldn't be found.  That was actually the downfall of Resolution - Hans wasn't interested in being the actual real-world vox for Resolution, and Scott rejected every vocalist I auditioned for a second project.

In another bit of trivia, Steven Nixon, who did the artwork, grabbed four random sets of eyes out of Details Magazine, scanned them, and put them on the back cover.

And that's pretty much the history of Resolution!

THE SONGS

Sympathy for the Left Wing - lyrics and music by Calix Lewis Reneau
Another Solution - lyrics and music by Calix Lewis Reneau
Politically Incorrect - lyrics and music by Calix Lewis Reneau
Tempted (cover)
Watch What You're Doing (cover)
The Price of Love
Ditto Heads
Light and the Perfections - lyrics and music by Calix Lewis Reneau
Psalm 91
Light and the Perfections ("hidden" music-only "dance" mix)