With two East Coast Music Award nominations in his back pocket, Jeff Liberty has a lot to smile about these days. Nominated for Manager of the Year and Media Person of the Year, Liberty is seeing the fruits of his labour paying big dividends.
Liberty is the manager for New Brunswick musician Matt Andersen, as well as Northern Pikes member Jay Semko. But, one of his most recent endeavours has the manager leveraging his connections for the benefit of others.
A holiday collection of music, A Very Vintage Xmas, was released late last month with all proceeds from the project being donated to the Harbour Lights Food Banks (for outside of the Hampton area) and to the Hampton Food Bank for units sold within that community.
The CD is currently available for purchase at Backstreet Records in Fredericton and Saint John as well as via Bayview Credit Union branches from Sussex through to St. Stephen.
With contributions from artists such as Matt Andersen, Brent Mason and Jolene Tufts, the CD is a mix of holiday standards as well as original material that was recorded at Saint John’s Vintage Bistro.
“I had wanted to compile a CD for a while and also wanted to raise money for a good cause,” Liberty says from his Saint John area home. “I had done live CD’s at Sessions Cafe and ended up really loving the feel and intimacy of those recordings.
“We took over Vintage Bistro for one sold-out night back on October 28 and had a really amazing night of music. It was a bit like controlled chaos,” Liberty laughs. That controlled chaos turned out some pretty amazing results.
“Tim Davidson recorded the night’s events for us and did a remarkable job. I think that the production on the CD is amazing considering we had very little money for production in our budget.”
Liberty is hoping to raise a couple of thousand dollars for the province’s food banks via the CD and has been a collector of non-perishable food items for the food banks as well.
“Supporting food banks is a very personal thing,” Liberty quietly notes. “As someone who has had to rely on using food banks in the past, I feel it’s important that people know my motivation behind the project and help give their support in any way they can.”
In addition to being available at the outlets mentioned above, A Very Vintage XMas is also available for mail-order via www.vintagebistro.com.