Freedom Song - Luc Reynaud

Read this story of the MySpace account of Luc Reynaud.

Hello, My name is Luc Reynaud. I set up this site to show and tell about a song that came about between a group of kids and myself in a Shelter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I traveled to Louisiana from my home in Seattle about a week and half after Hurricane Katrina hit the Southern Gulf as volunteer with the Red Cross. I'm a musician so I had brought my guitar along with me just to have, I know that music is helpful anytime, let alone times of struggle, but I didn't quite realize how much until after this trip. While I was there I met this young girl named Jercora Johnson, ten years old, and she blew the whole shelter away with her voice one night when she snuck on the loudspeaker and sang a song to the whole gymnasium, 400 or more people, sitting or lying on their cots, their 2 by 6 foot homes. Later the two of us started working on this new song together and a bunch of other kids gathered around and soon it just took off. I was like 'wow," this sounds amazing,' it was just rolling. We carried that excitement and started going around the shelter performing the song to cheer people up and even eventually did a talent show with it that rocked the house. It seemed to bring people a lot of good feelings and the kids were way into it. I was so struck, I wanted to record the song and just the energy of the kids doing it before I left somehow but I couldn't.

But when I traveled home it ended up having enough grip to be one of those things you just don't let go by. With a lot of instant help, support, inspiration, and unexpected words from my grandfather, I decided to go back down to Baton Rouge. I got a hold of a fellow artist and friend of mine, we borrowed a high-end video camera, and went down the two of us to find the kids and try and record the song professionally. It was a very open ended trip, we had no idea how it would go, but we ended up finding a recording studio in a Church and two producers that put in hours and let us record for free.

It was a pretty powerful experience, the kids were so exited, it was such a strange and different kind of experience too, hanging with these kids, during such hard times, just the movement, the action of recording it getting exited about it was such a conductor for hopeful energy. And the various people that helped us were incredible. These kids had a lot to teach. And there's much much more to tell on them, incredibly talented, a few of them should be on star search for sure, and that's one of my hopes with getting this song out there.

This is just the start, I wanted to get this site up to share the song and tell a bit of the story. So I hope you enjoy. Soak it up. Send it around. Help us get it out there. Turn it into a hit song, and if things go well maybe we can raise some money for the kids and their family as well as other avenues of Katrina Aid. If not to just to send a sweet song around the world that lifts people up during their day.



The main girl that sings in the second verse and throughout the song is Jercora Johnson, ten years old. Lives for singing, look out. The lower smooth soul voice that comes in on the Chorus and other parts is actually a 12 year old named Joel Jackson, pronounced "Joe-ell." His favorite singer is Luther Vandross. I thought that was so cool. This kid is incredibly smooth. The little ones holding down the chorus and rocking the house are Donnie "happiness" Booker, Anjel, and Nyla, (Coming from two beautiful Moms, Paula and Amy who were a big part of making the whole thing happen,) and little Kenny and his sister. But the spirit of every kid from the Southern University Shelter is in there. Many that didn't get to sing on the track but were still the heart and soul of it.

Be ready! Ga naar z'n MySpace profiel en luister naar dit prachtige liedje! Laat het liedje tot je doordringen en dans als je wilt! Het maakt mij in ieder geval vrolijk!

-Jolanda