Christmas 2020

Well I suppose like everyone else, I won’t be sorry to see the back of 2020! Having said that it hasn’t all been bad. For instance, John Wells completed the “Cecelia” video soon after my last newsletter, and excellent it is too! If you’d like to see it just click on to this link Cecelia

When the Christmas and New Year celebrations have died down, our top priority is to prepare for the City of Culture year, starting on May Day. It will begin with the release of, “Back Home in Coventry”, as a CD. This track has already attracted much publicity and attention from the You Tube video release and is a big favourite at the Coventry Music Museum. Also in the pipeline for the culture year is a tribute recording of a song from the pen of the one of the late greats of Coventry, Rod Felton.

Rod was an enigmatic but highly talented singer songwriter who gigged all around the city. He wrote and recorded some great tracks, many of them done in Rob and Nige’s small Kingsway studio in the late 1960s/early 1970s. When Nige took him to London to try and get him a deal with one of the major recording companies, he simply clammed up and couldn’t wait to return to Coventry. When he got home he wrote a superb song called, “Take me away”, which reflected his disdain for the capital! It’s a heartfelt song and one the boys decided to record as a tribute to a much missed talent. It’s especially poignant as it sings the praises of his home town.

So, I wish you all a very happy Christmas and every good wish for a ‘better’ New Year!

The very best, Bill B.

Autumn 2020

Well, despite all the many problems everyone is facing this year, we here at “Fort Pigeon” have managed to keep busy. First bit of good news is that Coventry’s “Year of Culture” is to go ahead after all, albeit with a starting date now of May 1st 2021. This means that the Lieutenant Pigeon commemorative CD will be issued at some point before then. Already the lead track, “Back Home in Coventry” has been featured on a very successful video which can be viewed via this link on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4oJO2O5Qcc

Filming for the other promotional video, “Cecelia”, has now been completed and is currently being edited by the ultra talented John K Wells. This we hope to have released very soon.

Lastly, recently released is a 5 track CD the boys are referring to as, “The Awareness CD”. This is a very serious project aimed at drawing people’s attention to all the many world problems faced by mankind today. Because it really doesn’t fit into the genres of either Lieutenant Pigeon or Stavely Makepeace, this CD has been released without any artistes credit. It will merely be alluded to as, “Makepeace Music presents”. Has anyone ever attempted such a project before? Anyway, it’s aimed at making people think.

In the meantime we hope all our followers will do a bit of thinking, that, despite all the nasty things that have come our way in 2020, we seem to have come through the worst of it now!

Keep smiling, Bill B.

Late Summer 2020

A very special Newsletter. Our “Awareness” CD is about to go on sale. This CD has 5 tracks which all have very serious messages. They will therefore not be released as either Stavely Makepeace tracks or Lieutenant Pigeon tracks. They will merely be presented as, “The AWARENESS CD”, from the Makepeace Music ‘stable’.

Track One is “When all this is over” and is about a very current problem the world is facing this year, the Covid virus.

Track Two is “We don’t need 20 20 vision” which highlights the perilous dangers of polluting planet Earth.

Track Three is “Gone but not forgotten”. Suicide hits just about everyone on the planet either through family or friends connections. Our tribute is to those loved ones left behind.

Track Four is “It’s Our turn now”. This is a slightly ‘tongue in cheek’ reflection of the attitude of the younger generation as to the environment and mankind’s over population of the planet.

Track Five is “Far beyond the Universe”. This track tackles the biggest mystery of all. What is life anyway??

In the meantime we hope all our followers will do a bit of thinking, that, despite all the nasty things that have come our way in 2020, we seem to have come through the worst of it now!

I will be compiling the autumn newsletter very soon.
The very best Bill B.

Summer 2020

Another milestone will be passed on July 30th 2020. It will be exactly 50 years since the first TV appearance of Stavely Makepeace! The programme was “Top of the Pops” and the song performed was their latest single “Edna”. The record went on to receive an enormous amount of Radio One airplay but failed to chart due to being on a small label with poor distribution to the shops. Nige recently told me that Noel Edmonds told him people were sending in 10/6d postal orders to Radio One because they couldn’t find “Edna” in the shops. Who knows what would have happened had the single been released on a bigger label!

The pandemic ‘lock down’ continues but thankfully we seem to be over the worst now and things are easing a little. Filming has recently resumed for the promotional video to accompany the release of “Cecelia”. This means that we’ll almost certainly re-release the CD in the autumn. In the meantime we’ll leave the current announcement of the release of the song on the home page. The CD is therefore still available despite a new release date being imminent.

Not a great deal more to report at the moment. Until we hear otherwise the “Coventry’s City of Culture” year, 2021, is still going ahead. Cancellations of many cultural events leading up to it have obviously had to be cancelled and the Coventry Music Museum has suffered badly as a result of the pandemic but with luck, by the time we issue the next newsletter, the news will be much more encouraging.

Stay Safe. Bill B.

Easter 2020

Well, this newsletter was to have been a very optimistic one with lots of new projects to be announced. However, in view of the terrible pandemic that’s going around, I’m afraid it will be a bit of a damp squib! Just before this ‘riot’ all started we quietly slipped out another CD for release. This was the long awaited “Cecelia”. By now it should have been accompanied by a wonderful promo video but, needless to say, this has now been put on hold. Sales of Cecelia have been very promising so far, and when the video which will accompany it is finally seen on Youtube we feel that interest in the CD will rocket.

As well as the new Stavely single there’ s another Lt Pigeon CD in the pipeline. This was due to be released later in 2020, in time for the 2021 “City of Culture” year for Coventry. This will be a 4 track CD and all the tracks are dedicated to the City of Coventry, the home of Lt Pigeon. Fingers crossed Corona Virus will be a thing of the past soon and all these plans will still go ahead!

Lastly a very adventurous project. For some time the boys have been working on several tracks to highlight the plight of planet earth and the long term future of mankind. A very serious subject we know but one that deserves all the publicity it can get. The results will be 4 tracks they are calling “Awareness” tracks. All have very serious messages,. These tracks are already recorded. Had they not have been it may have been necessary to include one about the dangers of world virus’s. However, all the messages about this subject have already come home to roost. Because of the magnitude of this project we have decided to release this CD without credits. It will simply be announced as a presentation from the stables of Makepeace Music.

I hope my next newsletter will be steeped in merriment and cheer!
All for now. Bill B.