Joshua Henderson, a long-time member of Blue Room, our inclusive arts project for learning disabled and neurodivergent artists, launched his debut album, “Songs of Liverpool for Friends” at the Bluecoat back in June featuring a special performance that coincided with Learning Disability Awareness Week from 17 - 23 Jun. The evening also premiered a behind-the-scenes documentary filmed during the making of the album giving insight into Josh’s creative process.
The album of original songs was recorded at The Cabin Studio with the support of Liverpool disability and deaf arts organisation DaDa, and with the assistance of a grant from the Youth Music NextGen Fund, which aims to help young creatives across the UK realise their dreams. He became involved with DaDa through the organisation’s DaDa Ensemble project, which works with young disabled musicians to compose and perform original music, and he wrote his first song, Here I Am, in 2018.
This new autobiographical album, which is the result of two years’ work and features nine new songs including Liverpool is My City Home, This Is the Liverpool Skyline, Capital of Culture 08, Minecraft Liverpool and This is Anfield – the latter inspired by his love of Liverpool FC. Joshua has spent around a decade working with Blue Room to nurture his creative practice, and pays tribute to us in his song, Bluecoat.
Joshua, whose musical influences include The Beatles, The La’s, Keane, and U2, and his passion for music is contagious, said, “Liverpool is my home city. Liverpool is my favourite place. It’s where I do my art and I like the buildings, they make me calm. I like to go down on a sunny day and get on the ferry; I love feeling the breeze and looking over at the city."
Speaking about other tracks on the album he said, “My thing is rock and roll, but I wanted Minecraft Liverpool to be gentle. It’s about the city and the game I use the blocks to build with. Choosing my building songs. It’s about Liverpool but it’s also about me being involved with Bluecoat."
All the songs have been written and arranged by Joshua who performs vocals, electric guitar and piano. Joshua is a multidisciplinary artist and also designed the album cover’s artwork supported by our artist facilitators from Blue Room. Working alongside Facilitator Rachel McMahon he used digital design tools to create a collage from his extensive collection of paintings of Liverpool landmarks, first exhibited by the Bluecoat in 2018.
"Josh had a clear vision for his album cover from the outset and it was a pleasure to assist him in bringing it to life. He developed so many new skills during the process, from designing his own typeface to painting the clouds digitally, and then we had the amazing opportunity of animating it together for his album launch. This has got to be the most joyful design job I’ve ever worked on!"
The singer-songwriter is joined on the album by Mollie Parkinson on bass, Tyler Sherwood on drums, additional vocals, piano and keyboards from producer Jon Hering, with fellow producer David Kelly providing vocals and rhythm guitar. Meanwhile the cello on the track Capital of Culture 08 is played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Georgina Aasgaard.
DaDa Executive Producers Ngozi Ugochukwu and Rachel Rogers said, “Josh has been on a journey of artist development with DaDa for a long time now, and it has been our pleasure to watch him grow and develop as an artist. Along with our friends at Blue Room we have supported Josh to showcase his fine art skills as well as work with him to develop his musical ability.
“Passion for his craft oozes out of Josh, and his creative flair is infectious to those around him. Josh is a wonderful example of how if we nurture creative talent in disabled artists, they can develop truly impactful and inspiring work like this album."
More about DaDaFest
DaDa, founded in 1984, develops and presents excellent disability and Deaf arts through a multi-art form artistic programme that includes high-quality festivals, interventions and events, fed in to by a year-round programme of engagement work with developing and established artists, young disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent people, their families and the wider community. The first DaDaFest International was presented in 2001 as a platform to showcase the work of disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent artists.
Its Young Ensemble project is run in partnership with Resonate Liverpool’s Music Hub, Drake Music and Youth Music.