Working With Amaia Montero

Amaia Montero is a very successful Latin artist. In 1996 she joined a pop band "La Oreja de Van Gogh". The group released 5 albums and sold over 6 million copies in all of the Latin Countries .

After 11 years of working with the group, Amaia announced the decision to leave this very successful group to pursue her solo career. This was in 2007 and this is where I came in. Amaia was working with an Italian producer by the name of Claudio Guidetti. I had worked with Claudio on Eros Ramazzotti on several projects. Eros Ramazzotti is a huge Italian artist. A lot of times artists from other countries come to the United States to work with various musicians and singers whose work they admire and that is how I met Amaia.

I got the call to put together a group of singers for this project. Since I had worked with Claudio on other projects I wanted to get the same people I had used in the past. So I called the usual suspects, Alex Brown, Bridgette Bryant, Jim Gilstrap and myself. We met Amaia and recorded 5 songs singing backgrounds. She is a very talented singer / songwriter. She was very impressed with our work as we were also impressed with her songs.

It's funny because Maia doesn't speak that much english so we were definitely having fun translating back and forth to make sure that she was getting what she wanted.

Amaia, is definitely a fireball and it comes across in her music. She is energetic a lot of fun, and always smiling. Her solo project entitled "Amaia Montero" did quite well. Since she already had a fan base from the group it was easy to see why Amaia's solo project soared to #1. While working with Claudio on another Eros Ramazotti project Claudio mentioned that Amaia's solo album was #1 in all of the Latin Countries and he gave each of us a copy. My wife Rebecca is Hispanic and she listens to some of the Latin stations from time to time and I have heard some of the songs that we recorded for Amaia's solo album.

Amaia started her second solo project and came back to the United States to work with the singers and musicians that helped her  first solo project do so well. On August 23, 2011 the 4 of us singers got together and went into the studio to sing for her upcoming project. We don't know the title of this project as of yet, nor do we know the release date, but it was a great session. There is a house in Malibu that's been turned into a gorgeous studio and that's where we did the recording. We were overlooking the Pacific Ocean and 'jammin' as I like to say.

I'm very grateful that I've had the privilege of recording with some of the greatest artists from literally around the world, and I have to say that it's a pleasure  working with Amaia Montero.


Until next time - Phillip