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DJ Ashley Franklin is best know as the presenter of BBC Radio Derby popular weekly contemporary music show: ‘Soundscapes’, a unique programme where Ashley featured music from across a wide range of music genres
In 1999 Ashley curated a charity double album entitled: ‘The Sky Goes All The Way Home’ that brought together a fine range of exclusive tracks by a wide range of famous and not so famous musicians, and through the words of Ashley himself, this is the story of how it all came to be…
It’s 2020 and ‘The Sky Goes All The Way Home’ has come of age. This story, though, goes back further than 21 years. Indeed, 2020 is the 25th anniversary of the time that Claire, our Down’s syndrome daughter, uttered that unforgettable line which led to the release – in 1999 – of an album that filled me with heart-fluttering, tear-flowing pride.
Listening to it anew 21 years on, it remains a great listen and still has me complaining of something in the eye. However, before I address the music on the album you need to know of its genesis.
In 1995, Claire was 12. Her mental age was lower and her vocabulary was limited. Most of her utterances barely ran to two syllables, so “please can I have a biscuit?” came out simply as “biscuit”. So, imagine the amazement my wife Francine and I felt when driving to the airport for a holiday on a summer’s morning. I briefly glimpsed back at Claire on the back seat to see that she was staring intently at the scudding clouds of a blue-sky day. As I turned my eyes back to the road, we heard the words: “the sky goes all the way home.”
It was an astonishing moment, which I wouldn’t have believed had Francine not been in the car. I knew Claire had uttered this line of simple pure poetry because Francine was weeping. While on holiday, we couldn’t stop speaking of that moment, and I then had a burst of inspiration.
At the time, I was a presenter of ‘Soundscapes’, a weekly contemporary music show on BBC Radio Derby and had become acquainted with many musicians. They weren’t just local either; some national names I had interviewed for the show had actually become friends… Rick Wakeman, Roy Harper, Gordon Giltrap, John Tams and Robert John Godfrey of The ENID.
I then thought of Claire’s special needs school – Parkwood in Alfreton – which was busily raising funds to keep its minibus on the road. Let’s help the school, I decided. So, the idea of a charity album arose.
I contacted musicians I admired and sent each one a CD-R where I had sampled the voices of Claire, her school pals and her 10 year-old sister Helena, all uttering the line: “the sky goes all the way home”.
I invited these musicians to compose a work inspired by that line, maybe incorporating the voice samples or using them as stimulus. The seeds of this idea grew with remarkable rapidity as most musicians I approached clasped Claire’s poetic line with evident enthusiasm and not a little emotion. Most shared the amazement Francine and I felt in the car that fateful day. Composer and multi-instrumentalist James Asher said that Claire’s line was like “a chink in the doorways of perception – a glimpse of a hidden magical domain.”
Folk singer and actor John Tams told me of how he was abroad filming episodes of the TV series ‘Sharpe’ at the time and tried to compose a lyric that would express how much he was missing his wife and daughter. He said: “I came up with the notion of how we were all under the same sun and moon, but somehow the song didn’t work its way out. Only when I heard Claire’s line did I realise that this was what I was trying to say all along.”
The concept of a single album soon expanded to a double! As the contributions started to arrive, there were moments of exhilaration and wet-eyed emotion. I recall listening to tracks by The ENID, Andy Pickford, CELTUS, Michael Neil & BIOSPHERE and thinking: “Oh my God, this is one of the greatest pieces they’ve ever composed!”
Especially memorable was the verve with which Roy Harper embraced Claire’s line. He rang Francine wanting to know as much about Claire as possible so he could incorporate her in his song – and he wanted it to be a children’s song that Claire herself would enjoy (and she does – it’s her favourite). A few months later, he rang me and said: “I’ve finished Claire’s song. Do you want to hear it?” What followed was surreal. I thought: “here is one of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time premiering his latest song down the phone… to me.”
What of the other tracks as I listen to the album for the first time in many years?
Firstly, what is particularly significant is that 21 years on, there are still tracks that haven’t been released on any other album. That was the idea for all of the tracks, save for the few donated ones, though all of the musicians who did eventually include their track on an album of theirs did at least have the grace to wait a few years before doing so. However, you won’t find Robert Fripp’s dark, searing soundscape: ‘The Sky Falls’ on any album by the KING CRIMSON guitarist, and it’s still a track that sends a shiver down the spine. It was Fripp himself who said that Peter Hammill“has done for the voice what Hendrix did for the guitar” and the VAN DER GRAAF singer’s brooding, melodic: ‘Far Flung’ – all about two people connecting by ‘sharing the sky’ - is also unavailable on any Hammill LP.
I was delighted to receive a track from Peter because of his Derby connection, and the same goes for Kevin Coyne whose abrasive, raw-voiced ‘I Believe It’ is also exclusive to the ‘Sky’ album.
CELTUS
, a band who according to Billboard magazine back in the late 90s “have all the potential to be one of the biggest bands to come out of Ireland” have also never released their contribution elsewhere. Their track: ‘Fade Away’ is a highly melodic slice of Celtic soft rock with to-die-for harmonies and still one of my favourites on the album. What a shame the band disbanded soon after.
What are my other favourites? Robert de Fresnes utilised the musicality in Claire and Helena’s utterances of the line “the sky goes all the way home” to create an uplifting opener to the album, augmented by his wife’s sublime operatic voice.
Gordon Giltrap
– one of the world’s greatest acoustic guitarists - composed one of his finest light, bright, melodic instrumentals in: ‘Fell Runner’.
Miranda Wind
’s track: ‘Lowlands’ has, like most of the tracks, stood the test of time, still sounding like a cosmic Ry Cooder.
The ENID
’s majestic symphonic: ‘Tears Of The Sun’ still sweeps me away with its melody, grandeur and power. It’s a masterpiece from Robert John Godfrey, the Tchaikovsky of Rock!
Michael Neil
’s ‘Lux Gratia’ is rhapsodic and rapturous space music up there with the greatest music composed by Michael Stearns and Steve Roach, while Andy Pickford’s ‘The Sky Breaks’ is a roller-coaster synth classic and – as I state in the sleeve notes – here we have an electronic musician who, in a world that was true, fair and decent, would have long been sharing poolside cocktails with Jean-Michel Jarre.
Nick Harper
’s guitar instrumental – he got to have the title ‘The Sky Goes All The Way Home’ because he was the first musician I approached and was genuinely touched to be invited – is melodious, tender and heartfelt, still about his finest guitar composition.
The album’s closer – Dave Massey’s ‘The Sky Goes’ – cuts me up every time as it absolutely celebrates Claire’s inspirational line by bringing together all of the voices of the children I recorded. They can be heard individually, overlapping each other, and in chorus. It’s the greatest work Vangelis never wrote.
My final favourite track mention belongs to Anthony Phillips, one of the founder members of GENESIS.
Every time I hear his lyrical, delicate 12-string guitar lines on ‘Sky Dawn’, I am reminded of that beautiful, harmonic sound he bestowed on GENESIS. I am also reminded of Anthony’s warm generosity… Shortly after the CD was launched, Anthony sent me a handsome cheque he’d received for royalties which added considerably to the funds we raised for Claire’s school, funds which kept the minibus on the road and enabled many trips out for the students.
As a final word… I looked at the sleeve notes I provided back in 1999 and they struck me as so pertinent to what we have been going through this year 2020. I wrote of ‘millennium fever’ and ‘a universal angst about the shape the world is in’, I considered the issues that we faced in the forthcoming century such as global warming, terrorism, AIDS, dwindling job prospects and the uncertainty of our existent jobs. I spoke of ‘shuffling off this mortal millennium a thoroughly stressed out, rat-raced, road-raged lot.’
I spoke further of the need for more optimism and ‘the happy, hopeful and enduring elements of this life’ and I stated that, for me, it was ‘family and home.’ These are elements that adhere to our lives even more as we try and cope with this wretched Covid 19 virus. I have coped better than most people because I have always been a guy who sees the glass as half-full. So, I still believe in the unwavering optimism of Claire’s line and the importance of home and family. May your sky go all the way home.
By the way, Claire is now approaching her 37th birthday and will always be with us at home here in Derbyshire.
She has not uttered her line since that day 25 years ago but this album celebrates the fact she did utter that line and, in doing so, lift our lives and – how many people can claim this? – bring about a double album of uplifting music.