COVID Check-In with Gary Clark

Virtual Memories Show
COVID Check-In: Gary Clark

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Musician, producer, and just-about-Broadway songwriter Gary Clark checks in from Scotland to talk about the musical of Sing Street (he wrote the songs, based on the movie) and how its Broadway debut has been postponed by the pandemic. We get into the recent charity livestream of Sing Street, what he’s learned from the process of working on a musical and how that’s feeding into his next project, the Emma Thompson-led musical of Nanny McPhee, the dire prospects for clubs and theaters hurt by the quarantine, the importance of having routines and rhythms for work and life, the pros and cons of streaming music, practicing Transcendental Meditation, having to rewrite the Nanny McPhee song “Plague, Rickets, Scurvy & Spleen” in light of This Whole Situation, and (of course I had to ask) the (non-)prospects of a virtual Danny Wilson reunion. Give it a listen! And go follow Sing Street: The Musical!

You can listen to all these COVID Check-In episodes at The COVID-19 Sessions.

Listen to the conversation! Then check out the archives for more conversations from The Before Times.

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About our Guest

Gary Clark is a Scottish musician, songwriter and record producer. As a performer he is best known as the frontman of 1980s pop band Danny Wilson, which scored a hit with “Mary’s Prayer” in 1987 off the album Meet Danny Wilson. After a second Danny Wilson album, Bebop Moptop, he made a solo album, Ten Short Songs About Love, in 1993, and was later a founding member of the short-lived bands King L and Transister. Gary found greater success in the years hence as a songwriter and producer, having written and produced songs for Natalie Imbruglia, Nick Carter, the Veronicas, Little Hours, and the Xcerts, among others. He composed and co-performed the music for John Carney’s 2016 film Sing Street and is the producer for HYTTS on his label, Blinding Heights. He wrote the songs for the upcoming Broadway musical of Sing Street and is currently helping adapt a musical version of Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson.

Credits: The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Gary by him. It’s on my instagram.