it was decided to bring in our compadre and well known Spanish artist Evan Craft to help put the finishing touches on the Spanish lyric . Evan has been a pioneer and YouTube phenomenon in Spanish Worship . His ability to take English lyrics and translate them for the Spanish church has made him one of the “ go to guys ” in the genre .
I asked Johnny what came first , the English or Spanish version of the song . “ The writing of Yaweh first began in English . The verses came out of Psalm 19 and I played with different ideas for the chorus , which ended up being Yaweh . Bringing in Evan we were able to refine the song even more when we translated it over to Spanish ” Johnny Rez
A few seasons ago , Johnny Rez was a contestant on NBC ’ s The Voice . He wound up on Adam Levine ’ s team . Another young Latina by the name of Courtnie Ramirez was on the same season with Johnny . Courtnie has since gone on to sign with Gotee Records and release a string of successful singles and videos for the Christian label .
While talking with our marketing partner Alex
Davila from The Adarga Entertainment Group , the idea of a female duet came up . “ What about Courtnie ?” I asked . Let ’ s ask ! So , we sent the demo to Courtnie and her label representative Jess Chambers and within a day they were in . Send us the track and we ’ ll have Courtnie record her vocal in Nashville . She has a small window before the holidays . Prior to confirming Courtnie I had told our California production team of Aaron and Matt Barbosa to take their time with the track , enjoy the holidays , let it marinate . Famous last words from a manager .
Fortunately , Aaron and Matt were used to deadline changes and jumped right in and delivered a stellar arrangement for us to send to Courtnie . First , we had to track Johnny ’ s vocal in Miami . Johnny tracked his vocal , sent it to Aaron and they prepared the stems for Courtnie ’ s Nashville session .
I KNOW A GUY
When both vocals were finished , we knew we needed a big background vocal arrangement . How does one do this during a lockdown ? You call Andy Delos Santos . This guy used to be one of the best kept secrets in Southern
California but recently the secret got out . I ’ m seeing him turn up on more and more projects in the past couple of years and rightfully so . This kid is a genius . Andy will typically deliver no less than 60 plus tracks , just he and a female singer executing a vocal arrangement that just takes your project to a whole new level . What Andy didn ’ t know at the time was “ Yaweh ” was going to be recorded in three different languages which meant we needed his vocal arrangement in English , Spanish and Portuguese . Saying he delivered is an understatement .
“ Because it ’ s three language versions of the same arrangement , I wanted to make sure that each version would be experienced the same way as the others ; so , my approach was to try and get each version as identical sounding as possible while still staying true to the uniqueness of each language . This meant using some of the same vocal tracks across all three versions . For the parts we had to re-record in each language , such as the chorus and bridge , we as singers were intentional about singing with the same approach , inflections , and dynamics to make sure each version had the same feel .” Andy Delos Santos
Johnny Rez Courtnie Ramirez Gabi Sampaio