This is the second of three songs in tribute to my father who passed away. It's my cover of Through the barricades, originally by Spandau ballet. If you didn't know what it was about, I'll tell you. It's about the troubles in Northern Ireland.

See what you think.

I mentioned I was going to say a few things about my dad's life, and so I will. I only know a small part of what happened in his life. Still there's enough to mention that will astonish even the most resolute.

My Dad. Part 1

I'll start with the simple stuff. He was born in a place called Hammersmith, in West London. His mother Lily was a wonderful person, but the same could not be said of his father. He was an Irish waiter. The dad used to beat his mother whilst John was there. It isn't any surprise that he despised his memory. He didn't stick around for long. His brothers and sisters all share a different surname to him. Fortunately they had a better father. As a youngster he used to get into lots of trouble. This was just a sign of what was to come in the future. Just a sign though. Some of the individuals he met in life ended up quite successful, and some of those achieved fame.

John joined the Navy at a young age. Though he only managed to hold in there for under 4 years before being dismissed. He got a reputation for fighting, and as a gambling man, he used to set up fighting fixtures with side betting. During his service, and many fights, he managed to get away with only one loss. During his service, he opted to take it upon himself to depart from the Navy, before his compulsory term had finished. concealing himself within the ranks of travelling gypsies, and eventually hiding out at his mothers house. This is where the Military police finally caught up with him. Picture the scene. The M.P.s talking to his mother on the doorstep, whilst John was escaping out of the back window. He didn't get very far before they captured him and returned him to Portsmouth.

To be continued...

On another note. This is quite exciting for me. I've finally put together my first album. It's titled "Sight Or Sound". As I'm working on a shoestring budget, the album is going out on digital release only. It's been difficult doing everything myself. The performing, mixing mastering and artwork etc. It's helped with the costs though. It will be on sale in over 40 places apparently. Some of those include Itunes, Amazon and Napster. Not wanting to sound like an anorak, but I was really pleased when I got the barcode for the album. Yipee! It has a global product identity. It's official

From what I can gather, it looks like the first availability will be in about a month. Then it will roll out to other online stores over the next couple of months. I'll be blogging it when it does, and telling about any reviews etc.

Finally, it's those Youtube stats again.

My subscribers have increased to 890. Only 10 off 900.

The channel viewings have passed the 20k landmark, and now stand at 20,672.

The total video views are now 343,712.

Next up is an acoustic cover. The third of my dad's favourites.

Now I'm going to get all acoustic. This is the third of my dad's all time favourite songs. There are so many different ones he loved, but I chose to do only three together. I might do some more in the future. This one is called "Baby can I hold you tonight". There was a very well known cover version by Boyzone, but my favourite is stil the original by "Tracy Chapman". It comes from a fantastic album.

I had a comment recently from someone telling me that I should stop relying on backing tracks. So I sat in front of my camera and played this on guitar. I have to tell you my opinions about backing tracks. I think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with using them. We can't all play musical instruments, and they can be very useful. How many lead singers of bands just sing? Quite a few to my knowledge. One of the most versatile instruments any person can play is the voice. So this is what I say to those that use backing tracks. Keep on using them. If you get criticised for it, then the best thing to do is ignore those comments. The most important element of all this, is that you enjoy doing what you do.. Not all people will like it. Could you tell me any singer that is loved by 100% of the world's population? Some people love you, and some people hate you. An e-book I was reading recently said that if 1% of the populationof the world like you, then you can count yourself as a success, because 1% of the worlds population is over 60 million people!

Now for the song. I hope you like my gentle take on this wonderful tune.

My Dad. Part 2

My father was very partial to females, and he acted upon his desires many times. One female at a time was not always the order of the day. There was one story I was told about two girlfriends he had. They were bi-sexual and were very much into each other, if you know what I mean. Anyway the sleeping arrangement were three people, one bed. This lasted for a while. I'm curious to know what the neighbours were thinking.

How this man came to be my father is confusing. As you will see when I give you a bit of background on my mother. If fate had chosen another path, then my father may have been a certain "Mungo Jerry". Does that name sound familiar? How about his number one hit "In the summertime"? Mungo spent some time pursuing my mother. It all came to a head when he asked her why she wouldn't go out with him. I think the answer put him off for good. Perhaps it hurt his pride. When asked, my mother replied "It's because you are too ugly". Now I know where I got that compulsion to be honest. Looking at old pictures of him, I have to say I'm inclined to agree. Good call mum Though I'm sure there are many women out there that found his very rugged appearance attractive. Just not my mother.

As time passed, the paths of my mother and father crossed. If you took their backgrounds into consideration, you would be scratching your head at the union. My father's family history was fairly unspectacular, whilst the bloodline of my mother's family can be traced to the aristocracy of the 19th century. That's as far as I've looked back so far. I'll be doing the family tree bit at some point in the future to see how far I can take it back. My mothers family will be quite easy, but I'm not sure it will be as easy to trace my father's roots.

To be continued...

Now for the nitty gritty stuff. The Youtube figures. There's been a bit of a yo-yo effect with my subscribers over the last 5 days, but they have still climbed. Another 3 hve been added overall and the figure is now 893. Channel views are up to 20,958 and the aggregate figure for all the viewings of my videos is 349,427.

So what's coming next?

I prepared a number of cover versions to put up in advance, so that I could spend time concentrating on my album. I'll be giving a track listing in the next post. Coming up next is a crash test dummies song. Then after that is a duet with another Youtuber!

There 2 subjects I want to go over in this post. There's a song on another persons Youtube channel, and the other important one my first album "Sight Or Sound".

I'm going to talk about the album first.

It's been on sale for a while now. It's available through CDBaby and other selling points. That's ITunes, Amazon, Napster and many other outlets. It is only available digitally, so the CD's are not available now, but they might be in time. Depending on how well it is received.

The track listing for the album is as below.

01) Soaked to the bone. *

02) So blue.

03) Convey. +

04) Take me home.

05) Don't wish it away.

06) Broadcast fantasy.

07) Keep on waiting (The stood up song). *

0 Escape.

09) Twist of fate.

10) Blow away.

11) Unknown. *

12) Counting down the days. *

13) Sight Or Sound. #

14) When I grow.

15) You think it's all over. *

You'll notice some other characters at the end of some tracks. This is for extra information, which I've described below. So where these symbols appear, this is what they mean.

* = These tracks are not currently on Youtube.

# = Features the wonderful talents of guitarist "Steve Morgan".

+ = This track is the official promotion track that will be offered out to companies, royalty free for promotional purposes only.

The final track on the album has an interesting story, and is probably a first. I think it's the first sports song to be turned into a normal song. It's normally the other way around. In it's original form, it was aired several times on a number of radio stations during the 2006 world cup campaign. The previous title of it was "They think it's all over", which was taken from the famous quote by Kenneth wolstenholme.

You can listen to clips from all tracks on the album by visiting the purchase page, at the following link:

Jeff Edwards - Sight Or Sound album

Now the other thing. A Youtube video. This was put up by a Youtube member going by the name of "KarenEng". It's a duet with her and I. It's that wonderful old classic "You don't bring me flowers" by Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand. This is a song I wanted to upload for ages, but couldn't find the right female vocalist. That was until I came across Karen. She has a great voice. have a listen and see what you think

Now for the regular dose of stats from Youtube.

I've flown past the 900 barrier with subscribers, and now have 912. I'm getting ever closer to 4 figures now.

The visitors to my channel are up at 21,373.

The total for all my video views is 356,896.

I think I got the potential video order mixed up in the last post. my next video upload will be "Afternoons and Coffee spoons" originally by the "Crash test dummies", because I've already got that one prepared

More on my father's story in the next post.

Now on to the eighty first vid. This was yet another request, and it's called "Afternoons and coffee spoons" originally by "The crash test dummies". I felt I wanted to do something a little cheeky with the video. You see many people singing behind locked doors, using whatever is available as a mic. Well, I went a bit further than that

Take a look at my version of "Afternoons and coffee spoons". There's a list of objects in the description of the video, but I think you'd have to go on to Youtube to check that out

Now for the continuation of some of the events of my father's life.

My Dad. Part 3.

My Nan lived a majority of her life in "Cowgate road" in the outskirts of of London in a town called Greenford. That place has reminders for a number of people, as I will expand upon later. It didn't take long for my father to become involved in criminal pursuits. He got in with a west london gang, and became an integral part of it. Dad couldn't keep his hands off of other people's property. Unfortunately at some point during his involvement, firearms came into play, though I never heard of an instance of him using any. I've got a couple of interesting tales to tell about this time. One was a robbery that he took part in. It was an art robbery in Chelsea. He recounted to me that he was fleeing the scene with his hands full, across Chelsea bridge, and he had to offload because they were slowing him down. So one of the artworks was tossed into the river thames. If the authorities ever wondered where one of the missing paintings went to. The answer to that question is "At the bottom of the thames". The rest of the haul was concealed in his mother's attic without her knowledge. So she was a little surprised when the police raided her home and produced a collection of paintings. They eventually captured him and he paid the price in prison.

One thing that could never be underestimated about him was his smooth tongue. He was once arrested for a crime, and was sure to be convicted and imprisoned, but somehow he managed to talk his way out of trouble. He engaged one of the officers in conversation about music. There weren't many people that weren't fascinated by music in those times. Anyway, this policeman revealed to my father that he had an old violin. My father enthusiastically suggested he bring it in for him to examine. He convince him that he was a seasoned expert in musical instruments (which he wasn't). In no time at all the officer brought the violin to the station and gave it to my father for examination. My father got very excited about it and he convinced the policeman that this violin was rare and worth money, and he offered him a few hundred pounds to purchase it from him. That was a lot of money then. The policeman quickly accepted his offer, and my father sourced the funds through his contacts, and the result was a very satisfied police officer. My father didn't even get charged for the crime. Oh yes. The violin. It was totally worthless. I don't know where my father got the money, but one thing I can be sure about. It wasn't his own money.

To be continued......

Here's an update on my album "Sight Or Sound". I've been playing around with the user interface on CDBaby. It's quite good, because it shows me how many visitors my page gets on a daily basis. Also the companies the album has been delivered to for distribution. I think it's probably reached all of them now. So it's available in many places.

You can listen to clips of all the songs on "Sight Or Sound" at:

Jeff Edwards - Sight Or Sound

Here's the Youtube stuff.

Subscriptions to my channel are now up to 920.

Those that have viewed my channel now total 21,490.

Total video views are 358,999.

My next video will be the last cover version for a little while. It will be "Run" by "Snow patrol".

Eighty two videos completed. This latest video is one on my request list. It's "Run" by "Snow patrol". The full version. I've been asked

to sing this by a few people, and I couldn't recall it by name, but when I heard it I recognised it immediately.

I love the song. I've used the imagery of roads and light for the video.

Have a listen and see if you like it:

My album page on CDBaby has had over 100 hits now, and the product has been delivered to 3 companies so far.

Those are Amazon, Napster and Ruckus. One of my daily tasks is to check on those sites for availability. They are not on sale on any of them yet. The merchandise shop is currently under construction. If you would like to listen to some

short samples from my album you can visit my CDBaby webpage at:

Sight Or Sound - Jeff Edwards

Now for more on my father.

My Dad. Part 4.

The relationship between my mother and father didn't last very long. Their first meeting was when she was going out with someone called Michael. After her and Michael broke up, my father appeared back on the scene. It might be difficult to understand how they got together, unless you met him yourself. His personality was highly infectious. A real charmer. He was loved by many, even though most of them were aware of his habits. Perhaps it's that old thing about being attracted to risk and danger. Very soon into the relationship I was conceived. I have asked her what it was that determined the end of their relationship. It ended up being more than one, due to my mother's tolerance. One of those was where my father emptied out the electric meter, and left my mother to answer the landlord. My mother would not take anything from anyone, and she felt so bad to be accused of taking the money. In one sense she knew it was him, because apart from the landlord, they were the only two who had access to the house. She could only deny the accusations. The landlord loved my father so much that he didn't believe it was my father.

The other event that helped to break the relationship was my mother's eighteenth birthday party. My dad came to the party, but not alone. They were a woman on each arm. I think that would just about do it for most people. I don't know if he did that deliberately to get her to end it instead of him. Knowing him, I'd say it was certainly a possibility.

So it was all over before I came into the world. My mother married someone called "Jeffrey" shortly afterwards. Now you know where I got my name from. He begged my mother not to tell me who my real father was. Instead pretend that he was my father. This was a wonderful arrangement until he had a child of his own. There was a noticeable bias torwards his daughter. My mother believed in fairness, so as a counter measure, she showed bias toward me. My stepfather was a violent man to my mother (unlike my father). So much so that I spent time in hiding as a baby with my mother. One of those places was an attic in a convent. Our associations ended with him when I was about 7. I never realised that he wasn't my father until I was 18 years old, and i didn't meet my real father until I was 21. The stories I tell about his life before me have been collected from him and confirmed by other family members. There's more to come. I can appreciate why my mother tried to keep me away from him in my youth. She feared that I might follow in his footsteps, and I'm glad that she decided upon that course of action.

To be continued.......

There's a big milestone around the corner concerning my Youtube statistics. A thousand subscribers looms.

I've had some good days over the last week and I now have 938 subscribers.

The channel have increased to 21,815 and the complete viewing figures for all of the videos I have uploaded are 364,724. I am averaging over one thousand views a day at the moment.

That is the end of the cover versions and requests for a few songs now. I'm planning to upload a number of my original songs, to complement the release of my album. The ones I will put up initially, didn't make it to the album .