Premiere: Frank Moyo’s a Friend of Mine

The first of many

Frank Moyo is a slow player in a fast world. With a suave, smooth, sultry voice and soft hands on the strings, Moyo offers a voice of reason in an industry that often runs too fast and too crazy. With a taste that meanders from Motown to James Brown and Isaac Hayes to Italian icons like Lucio Dalla and Toto Cutugno, Moyo’s sound is hard to pin down, in part because he is not one-dimensional—while one track might take you to the beach, another may put you in a car going 180 miles per hour, and both sound good.

The Canadian-Italian singer/songwriter not only writes and sings all of his music, but plays guitar, percussion, drums, and harmonica. Mpyo has already cultivated a reputation in his hometown, performing live on Toronto’s #1 morning show and reaching more than 3.1 million viewers. Now he’s ready to move forward. One example of this singer/songwriter’s trajectory is right here.

Moyo talked to Elmore about his new song: “‘Friend of Mine’ was inspired by how I was feeling throughout the month of November, where the weather was getting colder and colder. I had been living on my own for a while and a sense of unwanted solitude kind of kept recurring in my mind. I wrote the song primarily about living on my own and the ups and downs that come along with that. Also having found a friend in an unlikely circumstance and being able to talk to them and really connect with someone sparked many of the lyrics in the song. I want listeners to get a feel of a different side of Frank Moyo. I put out some acoustic music in the past and have played primarily acoustically but ‘Friend of Mine’ is a shift in a full band direction. I believe that it’s laying the foundation of the type of music that I want to start releasing from here on out.”

Moyo continued: “Devon Lougheed produced this song and the experience was amazing. I had been working with a different producer for a while and nothing was being accomplished. I met Devon through another musician and after just one session, ‘Friend of Mine’ was done. It is probably the quickest and best recording I have to date. The musicians featured on Friend of Mine play an important role as well. The keys that Seb Romanutti laid down as well as the violin that Kim Garzon contributed add such a unique vibe to the overall ambience of the song.”