Calling your name. Story behind an American Pie anthem
BT: My first introduction to Jan Johnston was on a 7″ I bought
in a cut-out bin at This Great Record store in Manchester. I had been working on this track for a long time and couldn’t find a vocal sample to use.
Brian Tranceau
According to the story, only nine months after the lucky purchase that cost 50 pence (75 cents in the winter of 1995) did Brian finally listen to the disc with the picture of Johnston that made him buy the record. “I thought: My God, this woman’s got an amazing voice! I was so stuck by her voice that we contacted her.” Jan’s state of affairs was so bad, she could have finished her career: her solo album sales were dreadful, the label terminated her contract and there was no hope for the new records.
After these nine months that Brian took to listen to her single, they only met nine months later. Jan: “I was in London and got a call from a studio in Manchester saying this guy called BT was in the studio asking who the singer of The Prayer (lyric of Calling your name song from this album) was. Thankfully, the owner of the studio was a friend of mine, our daughters went to the same school, hence him calling me to which I told him I’d head straight back up. A few hours later, Brian and I wrote Remember in that studio.” It was exactly what Johnston answered when Tranceau asked her how much the licence for Calling your name would cost. “Listen, I don’t want anything for it”, said Jan. “But just promise me we can do tracks on the next record.”
Remember, that was included in Brian’s ESCM, the success of the
