{"id":112132,"date":"2022-05-10T14:35:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T19:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=112132"},"modified":"2022-05-10T14:35:56","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T19:35:56","slug":"60-seconds-with-the-rah-bands-richard-hewson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=112132","title":{"rendered":"60 Seconds with The Rah Band\u2019s Richard Hewson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1545664804358300\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block; text-align: center;\" data-ad-layout=\"in-article\" data-ad-format=\"fluid\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1545664804358300\" data-ad-slot=\"8616314829\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=112132\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=112132\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-112134 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Rah-band-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Rah-band-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Rah-band.jpg 730w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Exclusive interview by Karen Beishuizen <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We all remember that 1985 music video where a girl calls the International Operator to contact her husband who is on the moon: The Rah Band with their great song &#8220;Clouds Across The Moon&#8221;. Richard Hewson is the man behind it and Rah stands for his initials: Richard Anthony Hewson. The band will perform for the first time in 40 years under the direction of Richard&#8217;s son Dan at The Jazz Cafe in London on 11th of June. Check it out!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: You used your first initials of your name Richard Anthony Hewson to create the RAH Band who had a huge hit in 1985 with Clouds across the moon: What is the story behind the song and the amazing video? I heard that your wife did the female vocals on that song.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was written after I had been working in Hollywood on the film &#8220;Xanadu&#8221; and in those days (&#8217;83) there were no cell phones etc. so the only way to call home was through the &#8220;International Operator&#8221;. When I got back and continued work on a song I was writing, I had the idea of setting the lyric in a future space age and made the call to P.R Johnson&#8217;s wife through the &#8220;Intergalactic Operator&#8221; My then wife sang the song, though&#8217; she&#8217;s not a vocalist, it gave it a charmingly vulnerable sound. Incidentally the video was not what I had wanted at all &#8211; I visualized a much earthier &#8220;Dark Star&#8221; vibe, still it did the job!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: Your career started in the 60s as an arranger and you worked with The Beatles on two albums I Me Mine and The Long and Winding Road: How did this happen and how was it working with them? You worked with Sir Paul on his solo albums?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Correction &#8211; they were the two tracks on the &#8220;Let it be&#8221; album I did. It is now well known that Paul did not want an orchestral arrangement to put on his solo voice and piano recording of &#8220;The Long and Winding Road&#8221; but John Lennon hired Alan Klien to &#8220;clean up&#8221; the album and brought in Phil Spector to work on it. Phil asked me to do a big orchestral score for Paul&#8217;s song which I wrote and recorded at Abbey Road. When Paul got to hear it, he went mad and didn\u2019t speak to me for a year! Some people say that I therefore was complicit in breaking up the Beatles! However, Paul must have forgiven me because I later worked on &#8220;My Love&#8221; &amp; &#8220;Dear Friend&#8221; for his Wings Project.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: You also worked with Sir Cliff Richard on several of his albums? I read you did the strings. You were also the conductor for The London Philharmonic Orchestra for his Live album?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yes, this was a concert called Cliff Richard &#8211; &#8220;Dressed For The Occasion&#8221; at The Royal Albert Hall (coincidentally my initials RAH which gave me a title for my project &#8211; The Rah Band) Conducting the LPO was an amazing experience which I shall never forget. The players in that \u201cband&#8221; are all brilliant musicians at the very top of their game, as witness we were only given one hour of their valuable time for rehearsing the two-hour concert but they read the score perfectly!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: You worked with so many famous people: Are there any artists you have not worked with yet but would love to and why?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Tony Bennett without a doubt. I love his albums with pianist Bill Evans (another hero of mine) and the &#8220;Duets &#8221; albums. Can&#8217;t stop listening to them, such great musical arrangements too.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: If you could make an album with your 7 most favorite songs: Which songs and why?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I have a lot of unreleased tracks in my studio just waiting to be put together as albums, I don&#8217;t really have &#8220;favorites&#8221; &#8211; they are all like children, such different characters but all equally loved.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: You are a record producer, arranger, conductor, multi-instrumentalist: Which instruments do you play? What style of music is your favorite and why?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I started as a jazz guitarist emulating the great Jim Hall, then went to music college to study composition, piano &amp; trumpet. I have a love of all styles of music from Stravinsky to Bruno Mars as long as it&#8217;s good!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>KB: I read that in recent years you have been writing music for TV shows? Which ones? Do you have anything new coming out? Are you still performing Live?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I did some episodes of the ITV series Agatha Christie&#8217;s &#8220;Poirot&#8221; a while ago which was quite a challenge for me but didn&#8217;t get very into that genre, I&#8217;m more of a song writer\/producer I suppose &#8211; there are a couple of Box Sets of my work coming out this Summer on Cherry Red Records. As for live performing, my project The Rah Band is going to make a live appearance for the very first time in more that forty years under the direction of my brilliant son Dan Hewson at London&#8217;s Jazz Cafe on 11th of June! I hope it won&#8217;t be another forty years before the next one!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Check out The Rah Band&#8217;s website: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.therahband.com\/\">HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Check them out on Facebook: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/The-RAH-Band-201366476562680\">HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive interview by Karen Beishuizen We all remember that 1985 music video where a girl calls the International Operator to contact her husband who is on the moon: The Rah Band with their great song &#8220;Clouds Across The Moon&#8221;. Richard Hewson is the man behind it and Rah stands for his initials: Richard Anthony Hewson. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28132,17984],"tags":[28802],"class_list":["post-112132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns-by-karen-beishuizen","category-entertainment-news","tag-60-seconds-with-the-rah-bands-richard-hewson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112132"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/112134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}