Reggae Musician – Zion Desmond Albert
Therese Johnson, CEO Senior Care of Sacramento, interviews the musician who wrote her company’s theme song. Zion Desmond Albert is from the Dominica West Indies, originally raised in U.S. Virgin Islands. He is a well-known reggae artist. He played with Ziggy Marley in concert in 2009 and has headlined many venues from California to Texas to New York. Hear more of his music at ZionReggaeMusic.com.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Jim: And thinking about Senior Moments — we have a wonderful person, that’s gonna be doing an interview of the individual that actually wrote the song, you know, that road jingle, that reggae jingle that we do.
Cami: I love that…
Jim: Yeah that’s Therese Johnson of Senior Care of Sacramento. Therese, how are you?
Therese Johnson: Hi Jim, I’m doing good…
Jim: Great. Well, I am so excited, you know we were playing this theme on Thursday & Friday, we had a slide ‘in or Friday coz they get us movin’ here. Love the theme. Well, I wanna go ahead and turn this over to you, as you announce the person that wrote that jingle and what he has coming up. Therese…
Therese Johnson: Okay thanks Jim. I appreciate it, and I gonna tell you Jim, I’m inspired by your health and fitness, that you’ve been doing. And it’s got me up and out there exercising on my elliptical more every day now.
Jim: Great. I’ve only got the applied example because Cami Ferry has been giving me some wonderful advice. So, thank you so much. Eighteen pounds that I lost its beginning of the year.
Therese Johnson: Congratulations that’s awesome.
Jim: Thank you.
Therese Johnson: So, anyhow, we have a fun program today. But before I start with that I just wanted to say hello to Evelyn. She was an amazing hospice nurse for over 40 years, who I met this week, and, I wanted to say, thank you Evelyn for your service. And now I’m really too thrilled today to have the opportunity to have Zion Albert with us on our show today. He’s from the Dominica West Indies originally, and was raise in U.S. Virgin Islands, and he’s a well-known reggae artist. And, like Jim was saying, he’s the one that created our jingle for Senior Care of Sacramento. That’s how I met him and he did an awesome job for us with our song. He’s invited to join with Ziggy Marley in concert in Hawaii in 2009. He’s perform that such event as “The Texas Summer Music Conference” and the “Hip Hop Action Summit Network”, as well New York Premiere Outdoor Reggae Festival,. Irie Jamboree, and he is also opened up for a number of international artists like the The Wailers Band, Pato Banton, Mighty Diamonds, and Luciano. So, welcome Zion!
Zion Desmond Albert: Welcome! Thank you, thank you very much.
Therese Johnson: So, Zion, tell me — so how did all this begin?
Zion Desmond Albert: Well, I was raised with spiritual bedrock. I’m from St. Croix and the music came from this church, really started from church and guitars, you know, been around the house and that’s why first started to pick it up.
Therese Johnson: So how did you find your purpose?
Zion Desmond Albert: Well, my purpose, speakin’ up with bits, I wanna, you know I wanted to help people with my music. And I realize the world has a lot of troubles. There’s a lot of sadness, there’s a lot of poverty, and they have a lot of things to talk about in the world. So, I just wanted to sing to help people out. So my purpose was giving and to help people to my music.
Therese Johnson: Well, and I think you do a good job — your music is very moving. I enjoy it, and I’ve been getting familiar with it. I know you have a new album coming out on April and I’m kind of excited to hear the music you gonna have on that.
Zion Desmond Albert: Thank you, thank you.
Therese Johnson: So, what keeps you inspired and grounded in your music?
Zion Desmond Albert: Well I came from a place watching a lot of people struggling every day, and, in Dominica, you know, we have to get up and get wood for the fire, back in the days, we didn’t have no lights so we used to use candle that would light, and some time the moon would be on light in the night. And I’m going down coco mars to pick water to fill the drums up coz we didn’t have any running water to the pipes and everything. So we coming from that type of life is what keeps me grounded and humble as a musician today.
Therese Johnson: Well, I can see what that kind of background, how that might, but you got running water today, now that’s nice, huh?
Zion Desmond Albert & Therese Johnson: (Laughing…)
Zion Desmond Albert: Yeah… we come a long way from back then (Laughing…).
Therese Johnson: So tell us a little bit about your new album you have comin out on April.
Zion Desmond Albert: Well, you know, we have Ken Porter, which lives up in the Redwood Valley California, at Travel Maker Studio, and the right next to Ukiah, Darshan Miller he’s the engineer who’s mixing it right now. We plan on releasing the album in April 1st hopefully April 1st, or if we don’t get it by April 1st, somewhere around April for the deadline. And a couple of good inspired music on there, good songs, spiritual songs, songs about things going on out in the world that needs to be talked about. And different things. I have camcorders of the drama from on the iTunes and he played with his uncle Kit Porter and they do a lot of shows out there in Sacramento. And they do shows the Sierra Nevada World Festival, and it was a honor running into him in Saint Louis, and I’m actually could have get him on my album to do some songs, and he says “Sure”, so he flies out to California, Redwood Valley, and then we put the album together. Now it’s in mix and I’ve been working on it about a year now, so we are almost through it.
Jim: Oh! I love your music, I love your music.
Zion Desmond Albert: Thank you.
Jim: We used to have a couple minutes here left, just wanted to highlight this, if I may I would tell you wrote a song called “The Veterans of War”. We used to have Kris Lambert here. He’s a three time wounded veterans, speaks on behalf of the Purple Hearts organization. And, I tell you, he was choked up listening to a song he said “He nailed it.”
Zion Desmond Albert: Whoa! Thank you.
Jim: And we’re also launching a livestrongamerica.com global radio to inspire.
Zion Desmond Albert: Yah!
Jim: I appreciate you allowing us to air some of your songs, kind like a little debut. And I really appreciate what you do here. Any final thoughts before we play your song?
Zion Desmond Albert: Well I just wanna say thank you for linking me up with Therese and Ken Porter, and Darshan Miller, and thank you guys for having me on the air today. I really-really appreciate it man.
Jim: Wow this is really great.
Therese Johnson: And to hear more of Zion’s music check-out his website at www.zionreggaemusic.com and for his new album, being released in April. And since February is Valentine’s month and the month of love, we’re gonna share Zion’s new song, that will be on the album, called “Love and Understanding” — title of his new album being released in April.
Jim: Great. So we’re gonna go ahead and play that right now so you can enjoy.
Zion Desmond Albert: Okay, thank you.
(Music Playing…)
