Everything Is One (CD & DVD)

Pete Francis, singer, songwriter, producer and former Dispatch front man is a musical and literary adventurer. He applies his creative curiosity and sense of discovery to his fourth solo effort, Everything Is One with fellow songwriter and New York musician Craig Dreyer. The 10-song CD & DVD on Francis’ own Scrapper Records label, will be available June 6 through http://www.petefrancis.com. Francis’ work with Dreyer, on Everything Is One, emanates from his desire to bring together interesting musicians to create music that does not fit into a particular framework or within specific boundaries. “I like to be involved in the discovery of unique musical forms,” Francis states, “created by improvisation.” The journey to create Everything Is One began when Dreyer and Francis met at a gig in Idaho through mutual friend jazz keyboardist Paul Tillotson where they quickly discovered a shared affinity for literature and poetry, Dreyer favoring philosophy and classic literature, while Francis, who once spent a year in Ireland immersed in the great poets and writers, focused on the works of Seamus Heaney, James Joyce and William Butler Yeats. They each had songs already written at the time they met and decided to combine their talents. “We spent some time collaborating,” Francis explains of the process. “Craig has a studio in his house where we started playing and it clicked. In our songwriting we search for specific images that reflect a universal idea.” Adds Dreyer: “I’m a fan of Pete’s writing, his poetry, and his natural singing ability. We started playing and we realized we each had some quieter tunes and ballads that we thought would work well together.” They began with acoustic demos and added layers and musicians as individual songs evolved. The pair brought in engineer Rob Fraboni who recorded Planet Waves with Bob Dylan and The Band and whose credits include Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker and the Rolling Stones. Fraboni, who co-produced the disc with Francis and Dreyer, used vintage microphones and unique recording techniques that add texture and depth, giving the record a “hi-fi quality.” The writing and recording of Everything Is One followed Dispatch’s 2004 farewell concert event that drew 110,000 fans from across the globe to Boston’s Hatch Shell Amphitheatre. The show and the weeks leading up to it are documented in the new film Last Dispatch, now being screened across the country to coincide with the release of Everything Is One. Pete Francis, the youngest of four, was born in New York and grew up in Connecticut in a family that values academics, business and the arts. Francis, through the influence of his family, who are accomplished musicians and artists in their own right, discovered the talents of Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd, and Miles Davis, as well as the great poets and the Surrealist School of painters. Francis attended Middlebury College in Vermont where he formed Dispatch with Brad Corrigan and Chad Urmstrom. The band built a loyal following as they performed across America. After Dispatch called it quits Francis made the successful transition to solo artist and has released three previous CDs, So They Say (Scrapper Records), Untold (Hollywood Records) and Good To Finally Know (Scrapper Records). Saxophone player Craig Dreyer is a native New Yorker who performed his first professional gig at 14. He appears on several songs on Dispatch’s live double CD All Points Bulletin and has served up his musical gumbo of jazz, funk and blues alongside artists such as Keith Richards (on the Grammy-Award winning album Timeless), Leo Nocentelli from the Meters, Gregg Allman, Little Milton, James Hunter, Warren Haynes and Joan Osborne. His musical and literary influences are diverse and range from the ancient stories of Homer to Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Dylan, Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon. Dreyer and Francis run Mighty Toad recording studio in Pawling, New York producing new artists for Scrapper Records.