Jack Cooper - Guelph, ON Musician

So I’m working on three projects now. Four, actually, counting a mini project wrapping up. The mini project is a small collection of songs by a London based singer named Gary Boyle. He is a very nice gentleman who I met this past summer at London’s Home County festival. A friend of mine, Andrew Kerth, was playing at the open stage and happened to do a plug for my business at the tail end of one of his songs. Andrew was my first guinea pig- I prepared a half-dozen of Andrew’s songs in leadsheet format as a fortieth birthday present. After Andrew did his plug, Gary approached me and asked about my services. Gary wanted to prepare a small book containing six of his songs to sell alongside his CDs. I agreed to have something ready that he could sell before Christmas. I am going to London to take some photos and interview him briefly to generate some additional content for the book.

The second project is a collection of notated songs and instrumental pieces by Norm Liota. Norm is a classically trained guitarist who plays fingerstyle guitar. I am stretching my capabilities by learning to transcribe his instrumental pieces- one in particular, called ‘Dreamwater’, is extremely challenging and I will be very satisfied when I’ve finally nailed the transcription. I will probably produce both a book as well as individual sheet music that will be sold and distributed over the internet using some very cool interactive digital sheet music technology. More on that later.

The third project is a collection of songs by Katherine Wheatley. Katherine is one of my favourite writers and performers, and has a tremendous catlogue of songs. I’ve started the transcription process, and hope to have a book available by springtime. I would love to have the book finished by the time Katherine appears at the Registry theatre in Kitchener, but we’ll have to see.

The fourth project is an anthology of songs by Eileen McGann. Eileen has a tremendous local following in Kitchener-Waterloo thanks to a series of concerts hosted by Jack Cole and the Old Chestnuts Song Circle. Eileen is brilliant both as a singer-songwriter and interpreter of traditional music. She is also an accomplished visual artist, and her songbook will contain some of her visual art as well. Ken Brown will be helping me with the project (actually, he always helps me- I guess I mean he’ll be helping me more than usual with this one). We are aiming to have the book ready before the arrival of summer.

I actually enjoy working on multiple projects. If I get stuck on one particular project, I can un-stick my brain by switching to another project. Hopefully I’ll have some time throughout all this to pick up my guitar for a purpose other than figuring out chords or guitar parts.

Cheers,
Jack