Mandingo Drive is the new musical offering from Jamaican/Canadian songwriter Valentine Hohn. In partnership with Deanie Drake (co-writer/arranger), they have worked hard to create a style of reggae that includes other genres in the songwriting process.
Valentine has been on a musical journey since his teens in his homeland of Jamaica. Starting on the harmonica he would perform songs throughout the community, entertaining family and friends.
Since that time, Valentine has moved to Canada, li...
Mandingo Drive is the new musical offering from Jamaican/Canadian songwriter Valentine Hohn. In partnership with Deanie Drake (co-writer/arranger), they have worked hard to create a style of reggae that includes other genres in the songwriting process.
Valentine has been on a musical journey since his teens in his homeland of Jamaica. Starting on the harmonica he would perform songs throughout the community, entertaining family and friends.
Since that time, Valentine has moved to Canada, living in various towns and cities with large musical support. While being mentored by the late Art Snider (owner of Sound Canada, mentored Rich Little and Gordon Lightfoot), he continued to expand his songwriting skills. This progressed to Valentine spending time in the studio with Art crafting sounds and songs, which led to the production of singles which hit the airwaves and received a large amount of airplay.
While living in Nova Scotia, Valentine worked with Daniel Heikalo of Heikalo Sound Productions, Mike Arsenault and Deanie Drake on the singles "Broadway Tonight" and "Goodbye Sweet Lady".
Listing some of his favorite influences (at the top, his wife), songwriters Ron Hynes (Sonny's Dream) and the late Gene McLellan (Snowbird, Put your hand in my hand) encouraged him in turning his musicianship into a continuing career, never forgetting their words of wisdom. Valentine has spent time with many different songwriters and a vast majority of musicians. Learning is a constant process, which is the largest benefit from collaboration. Resulting from the demanding market for new music, Valentine has been utilizing sounds from different genres in his songwriting. In his own words,
"The addition of the harmonica, as well as the fiddle, has definately been a vision that I have had for sometime. It brings a flavour of different cultures into the mix. The results.....are...well......take a listen and judge for yourself."
This effort is currently in production with it's new full length albumn. Mandingo Drive's first single off this albumn, My Mona Lisa, is currently being pressed and painted, and dropped in a mailbox.
NEW! You can find my music on iTunes! Or you can use Rawrip, found here:
show more...
