Carreg Ddu is a newly formed band, and you can now hear our first demos on our Songs page.
"Carreg Ddu" is Welsh for "Black Stone", and it's pronounced Car as in Car ry, reg as in reg ular and Ddu sounds like thee .
Our aim is to make music that is mystical, thought provoking and inspiring; sometimes maybe all three!
Carreg Ddu is currently a studio based project, currently focused on writing quality music, but who knows what the future holds?
Carreg Dddu are:
| Carol Davies | Vocals |
| Derek Cook | Keyboards, Synthesizers, Samples and Guitars |
Carol has always had a love of music mostly of alternative, musical’s, jazz, soul and blues which inspired her to learn to play the tenor saxophone and most recently the acoustic guitar.
Although she took part singing as a mezzo soprano in choirs and amateur musicals in Cardiff, it wasn’t until the age of thirty that she sang on stage for the first time singing a part solo of a folk song at a fundraising concert. Feedback was positive and it gave her the confidence to try other venues to sing, but unfortunately life got in the way until five years later.
In late 2007, Carol took the plunge and replied to a band looking for a vocalist – this happened to be Echoes.
After a discussion with the band, Derek suggested joining him to complete the vocals to a song he had written, which was "Torn", and the results achieved led to Carol and Derek forming Carreg Ddu.
Derek gave Carol the music to "Remember" which was the very first time she had written lyrics. Since then Carol has written several lyrics to music composed by Derek which may be released at a later date
Derek is quite a late starter when it comes to playing live. Having an electronics background and a love of listening to music, he had an interest in synthesizers in his teenage years but never had the disposable income for a decent one until much later in life, and a Casio home keyboard and its cheesy sounds didn’t quite have the same appeal! In 1998 he brought the Yamaha DX7 that he had always promised himself (15 years earlier!) and doodled about in a little attic studio for six months before suddenly realising that he was not getting very far on his own in terms of playing skills, and that he needed the influence of other musicians.
So in 1999, at the tender age of 35, he joined a band of complete beginners that were all starting up, and who were probably all having the same early onset mid-life crisis! The band was christened Highly Strung and it became a very popular functions/weddings/pub rock band in the Cardigan Bay area of Wales, including a high point of playing for a high society wedding in the grounds of Pembroke Castle, and they even escaped the Welsh borders on a couple of occasions to gig for people who had been on holiday to Cardigan, seen the band and amazingly wanted more of it on their home turf in preference to their local bands!
Highly Strung came to a natural end in 2005. Derek and Ron, the guitarist from the last Highly Strung line up, had a shared love of progressive rock music, and after years of playing the same old stuff that all pub/functions bands seem to do, they decided that they wanted to play progressive/classic rock covers ( Pink Floyd, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Mountain, David Bowie, etc.)
So Echoes was formed in 2006. Echoes as a gigging band was short lived and only did three gigs in 2006, but they were all sell-outs. At the end of 2006 Derek and Ron decided to move towards doing all original music, as a few original pieces sneaked into the covers set had appeared to go down as well as the covers.
Sadly, life outside of the band kept getting in the way of Echoes, and it is currently on hold awaiting a time when Derek and Ron can turn the demos into completed songs.
By 2008, Derek was really missing gigging, and took up an opportunity to gig with Pure Floyd which is quite a popular draw on the Welsh gig scene.
And because Derek has eclectic taste and is also a workaholic, he's also formed Carreg Ddu with Carol!