A young picture of Teri
- Fortunately, we still have the original scratch demo recordings with Teri singing and John playing guitar of all 10 songs we wrote together. These rough arrangements were recorded with the internal mic on John's laptop with the intentions of using them as a guide to create the final arrangements. They were basically rehearsals, so some guide singing appears occasionally. Even in its roughness you can hear the spirit Teri brought to this music.
Our Collabration
By John KilburnTeri came to me about 1 1/2 years ago to learn guitar so she could write, perform and play her own songs. Even though she tried very hard, unfortunately, do to some very difficult physical problems, her disabilities were too great for her to progress very well. She had some ideas for songs and I asked her to sing them for me. I was in for quite a surprise! She had a beautiful sweet voice and her lyric and melodic ideas were quite touching, refreshing and very uplifting.
The messages in her lyrics were very positive and heartfelt. Her song ideas were particularly moving to me, for I was aware that Teri not only had difficult physical problems to deal with, but had suffered a lot of loss and hardships in her life. In the year before she came to me her mother, sister and best friend had all died.
We decided to form a songwriting team. It clicked very well right away. Every week Teri would come in with lyrics and bits of melodies (the ideas were pouring out of her) and I would write the chords, reshape the melodies and create the song form. We had a lot of fun working together and over the course of the next year, by December 2010 we found that we had written 10 songs together.
In January 2011, we began the process of preparing arrangements and touching things up for the recording process. This job was in my court and I finished the arrangements and we recorded our first song "Fly Away" in April 2011 at my home Studio in North Fork. We had the next 3 songs ready to record and had to miss a few weeks due to schedules and health issues. Teri called me on Sunday, May 15th to cancel our session due to the late snowstorm we were having. She was in great spirits and was really excited about the upcoming session.
Sadly the next morning Monday, May 16th, Teri was found dead in her bed, the cause of death still unknown at this point.Fly Away (Nick’s song)
©2010 – Teri Liles & John Kilburn
Based on the poem “My Death” written by Nicolas George
Unfortunately this is the only song we got to record in the studio together before Teri died.
