Monday, February 28, 2011

A Christmas Miracle: Charlene's CD Album

Last June of 2010, I started worrying about how my sister Charlene's music needed to be recorded and how her children and grandchildren had never heard most of her music and had no idea of how prolific a composer she has been. My goal was to record all of her compositions onto CDs and give them to all of her children for Christmas. It was a daunting but enjoyable task. By December, we had recorded over 360 tracks of music which included 174 song titles plus minus tracks. The finished album of 10 CDs took over 7 months to complete and took up over 9 gigs of memory on the recording studio computer!
Below is a photo of Charlene recording her music at Full Fidelity,
the recording studio of Steve Phillips. He is seated behind Charlene.
Steve is so good at what he does and is so easy to work with; we would have
never been done by Christmas if we had gone to any other recording studio.
We spent so much time together,
I feel like Steve is a member of our family.
As a child, I remember hearing her at the piano composing into the wee hours of the morning. She wrote her first 2 compositions when she was only 14 years old. I have always wanted the world to know her music. She could have written music that could have been performed on Broadway. She could have performed on Broadway. She certainly had the voice and acting ability, plus beauty. The top photo of the album cover shows her performing when she was Miss Carbon County.
Below is a picture of Charlene when she was a runner up
for Miss Utah National Guard.

In 1977 she won 1st Prize in the Churchwide Relief Society song writing contest with "A Women's Prayer." It was sung when they dedicated all of the Relief Society Monuments in Nauvoo June 28, 1978, as well as also being sung in the Tabernacle when they held the 1st Women's Conference in the Fall of 1978. To the left is the front cover of when the Church published "A Women's Prayer" and also a photo of the statue that inspired the song Charlene wrote.
* * * *
I am so proud of Charlene. She is one of the truly Celestial people that walks on this earth today.

3 comments:

Charlene said...

Hi Bonnie, When I saw the picture inside the recording studio with me and Steve, I was sadly reminded of the fact that all of that wonderful musical creative time with you and me and Steve had to come to a temporary end. I had so much fun just doing all of those great times with you .......I APPRECIATE SO MUCH ALL OF THE MANY THINGS THAT WE HAVE DONE TOGETHER.....There were so many years when we were separated and went our own ways/////You have so many talents and I must say, when you are committed to do something.......YOU DO IT! love, Charlene

Cherilee said...

I wish I had some inkling of musical talent.

Keiko said...

Amen.
your father is a good musician along your mom and Bonnie.