Four weeks before John’s mate Ben Shaw died of cancer, a group of friends got together to record Ben playing the guitar for a song he and John had written years before but had never recorded. The song is called ‘Christmas Time’, and on the first anniversary of Ben’s death it is ready to be released … just as Ben wanted.

Show Notes

The song ‘Christmas Time’ was written by John’s mate Ben Shaw, with some help from John himself. We recorded Ben’s beautiful guitar parts just 4 weeks before he died of cancer. Ben was on this podcast a couple of times in his last months, so we hope regular listeners think of him as their friend, too.

He died a year ago today, June 17. And we’re releasing the song in his memory – it was one of his last big wishes that we take this song, which he and John had performed many times over the years but had never recorded, and rework it with a full band and release it. That’s what we’ve done.

You’ll hear the entire song at the end. In the meantime, we sat down with our long-time music producer Colin Benvenuto (and his guitar) and Ben’s wife Karen, a backing vocalist in the song, and we chatted about … well, Ben … and how the song came together.