101 SOUTHBy Nicky Baldrian
101 SOUTH
By
Nicky Baldrian
101 South is the
new project of Harlan Cage's Roger Scott Craig and after the
success of Harlan Cage Roger's came up with his idea for 101
South " I approached Magnus Soderkvist at MTM records about
maybe doing a solo project album for them. He was very supportive
and after cutting some new tracks we soon had a guaranteed
release with Avalon/ Marquee in Japan" says Roger
enthusiastically, "101 South so far has had a fantastic
reaction with some of the best reviews I have ever had! So we
intend to do another "101 South" album later this year
for release in 2001 and hopefully the fans will keep on liking
what we're doing."
Roger continues to explain about his musical career, "I
started learning the piano at age eight but soon moved on to the
pipe organ after my local church in Ireland had a new one
installed. I was soon playing there for church services while
having serious lessons at my local school where I learned to play
alot of the Toccatas and Fugues by JS Bach."
By the time Roger was sixteen he had developed an interest in
Rock and Roll and soon put his first band together whilst still
at school. "We played alot of Beatles and Deep Purple songs
and soon I began writing my own songs" After leaving school
Roger moved from Ireland to Liverpool, England where he started
his own band Liverpool Express "Liverpool Express was a real
melodic band and we gained a record deal with Warner Brothers,
our singer Billy Kinsley sounded just like Paul McCartney. In
fact Paul was a big fan of our band. We were compared alot to the
Beatles especially in South America where we had three
consecutive number ones. I don't think the albums are in print
any longer unfortunately."
Roger continues, "Over the
next four or five years we had many hit records in Europe and in
South America where we also toured playing to screaming,
hysterical fans. Alot of fun for sure. I did alot of session work
for a few years in London" Roger then had a call from
Foreigner "They invited me to record with them on the
"Agent Provocateur" album. Things didn't work out
between us. They were on the East coast and I was on the West! I
then decided to move to America and I soon joined a band called
Fortune based in LA and we soon had a deal with Camel/ MCA
records."
During his time with the legendary Fortune, Roger also toured for
a while with crazy German singer Nina Hagen. "We played many
big venues including Rock in Rio to 350,000 people! Unfortunately
the Fortune album didn't sell well and we all moved on to
different projects."
Ten years went by before Roger was contacted by MTM about doing
another album "We discovered that the Fortune album had sold
really well in Europe but Camel records had failed to notify us
or pay us!! Such a major rip off!!"
Roger then got together with original Fortune singer Larry Greene
"we started another band called "Harlan Cage" and
recorded our first album for MTM records. At this point I had
built my own recording studio in my home in Malibu, California
and moved on to scoring music for TV, and movies. I have recorded
seven CD's for a company called Signature music in Chicago and
they were the ones who made the contact at Warner Brothers.
Unfortunately I found the pressure and stress of doing movie
scoring to be just too much. They expect you to work through the
night, seven days a week and you have no time for your family. So
I don't do much of that any more!" he stresses.
Roger has had music featured in the movies "The Pelican
brief", "Wyatt Earp" and "Richie Rich".
"Two more Harlan Cage CD's followed, then I decided to start
another band called "101 South" teaming up with a great
singer called Gregory Lynn Hall."
Roger and Gregory had originally collaborated "on some TV
commercials and I thought he had an outstanding voice but
couldn't understand why he'd never had an album release. We did a
few demos together and MTM loved the results." explains
Roger,
Musically Roger is a big fan of sixties and seventies music
"The most exciting era in the music industry for sure. Lots
of great bands were trying new directions back then especially
the Beatles. There just isn't the same quality of music around
any more so I listen to George Benson nowadays!!"
Besides Harlan Cage and 101 South Roger's main buisness is
scoring TV commercials,
"also known as jingles." explains Roger, " I've
done alot of well known commercials in America and I even scored
the Boris Yeltsin reelection campaign commercial back in the
nineties!When I boot up my computer in the morning I just go with
the flow and write whatever feels right to me on that particular
day. Most of the 101 South songs were written that way and after
coming up with the tracks and melodies I then get to work on the
lyrics. Alot of the lyrics were written in New York in a hotel
there, when I didn't have any distractions for a few days. So I
hope you like the results!!" And indeed we do, 101 South is
a hugely enjoyable album filled to the brim with lush melodies
and great chorus' to die for, make sure you check it out, you
won't be dissapointed.