The album features songs from the 1940's standard Over The Rainbow to 1990's hit love song When You Say Nothing At All and also includes covers of songs from Van Morrison, Buddy Holly and Burt Bacharach. Susan says "When choosing the repertoire for this album I have stepped away from my usual choice of songs as I wanted to try a more daring selection, covering a wider spectrum of the music that I enjoy."
The closing song on the album, Goodnight, is a beautiful but little known song written by Graham Russell of Air Supply. The song was personally recommended to Susan by Graham after Susan's music was introduced to Graham by her new record company. The legendary Nashville based hit songwriter Mark Overstreet turned-up at the recording studio to see Susan when he heard that she was recording a version of his worldwide smash hit When You Say Nothing At All. Susan recalls, "Mark was really pleased to hear that an Asian artist was recording one of the songs he'd written and just turned up at the studio to have a chat and hang-out with us for a while."
The whole recording, mixing and mastering process was undertaken to capture the performances in there purest norm. All stages of the production were undertaken at a rate of 24bit/192khz. To ensure that the vocals were warmly recorded a vintage Neumann U67 tube microphone was used. The producer, Donald Marrow, (veteran of over 5,000 recordings) worked on the arrangements with jazz pianist & arranger Kevin Madill. Twenty musicians and vocalists were used including a vocal quintet from Seattle, The Island Choral Experience to add some backing harmonies on a few tracks.
The final mix was sent to the Mastering Lab in Ojai California for mastering by the legendary Grammy award winning Doug Sax, who has crafted sounds for the icons of the music business for over forty years for act's as diverse as Diana Krall and Pink Floyd., assisted by Sangwook Nam.
When talking about the finished album Susan says; "This album marks a new beginning for me. A new recording label, a new production team and a new producer. The making of it has taken me on a new musical journey, a very challenging and, at times, nervous one, but ultimately most fulfilling. The final master sounds great and I feel that this is my most accomplished recording to date."
Recorded by Paul Hart @ Sony Tree Studios, Nashville, TN, USA Assisted by Adam Engelhardt & Ted Pennington Mixed by Tom Hall @ Triad Studios, Redmond, WA, USA
Mastered by Doug Sax and Sangwook Nam @ The Mastering Lab, Ojai, CA, USA
Music director: Kevin Madill
Arrangements by Kevin Madill & Donald Marrow
Produced by Donald Marrow for Disk Eyes Productions
Executive Producer: Ashley Whitfield
Recorded & mixed May & June 2007