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An epic trail of Grammies and disappointments behind him, Loris Holland returns to the basics and shows you how, too
His name is known everywhere gospel music is performed. He's a legend among the elite of the New York session scene. Major recording artists owe their success to his production talents. Keyboardists around the world try to emulate his style. Yet no one seems to have seen Loris Holland.
There are reasons why you've never found him making acceptance speeches at awards ceremonies or appearing onstage as musical director for the top acts he produces. One of them is that he views his musical talent as a gift from God, which is therefore beyond considerations of remuneration and recognition. Infused with a bubbly and gregarious Caribbean spirit, his charisma is striking; yet he prefers to remain in the background, in the shadows.
On the terrestrial side of things, Loris has an ear for detail and a persistence for perfection that drives most mortals out of the studio. And he's been burned enough times during his career to distrust nearly anything the recording industry has to offer. Factor all this together, and you might get a picture of a recluse, mad in both senses of the word.
The truth is somewhere in between and beyond. A person of immense talent such as Loris is not generally the product of a simple equation. Indeed, growing up as he did in a corner of British Guyana surrounded by three milewide rivers, expanses of jungle, and Brazil and Venezuela, his influences were numerous and strong. First and foremost was that of his piano teacher/church organist mother. Her complete ban of any music in the household that was not classical or from a hymnal had its origins in the nightthat related accidental deaths of her father and her brother. Though they died years apart, each had been out performing "that stuff": popular music. Working against this was the influx of American popular music of every stripe, delivered to Loris daily via the BBC and the records his father would play-- but only when his mother was out. Another tributary was the tide of reggae, ska, calypso, and Spanish-influenced music that poured from the clubs and houses in Loris's hometown.