Young Guns ‘Lean on Me’ charity single brings together musicians, fundraising charities and health workers in support of the NHS.
Brothers Dominic and Alexander Lyon, of Young Guns have assembled over 100 music industry friends including Beverley Knight, Joss Stone, Omar, Josh Daniel, Ranj Singh, Blake & Escala as well as frontline NHS staff, to remotely record Bill Withers’ ‘Lean on Me’ to help raise money for the NHS.
Remarkably, the song has been recorded across 30 home studios by session musicians in isolation who naturally perform in the event & music industries. The music was produced in France by Ben Mitchell in France, and is the first time a track and video has been coordinated using remote studios on this kind of scale. A team of videographers and ‘MakeItBlue’ creatives put together the video.
On joining NHS Relief as ambassador, Beverley comments; “I was asked to come on board by Dominic & Alexander as I’d worked with them and Young Guns before. And music producer Ben is a great friend. As someone who has at least a third of my entire family working for the NHS, I didn’t only feel compelled, I felt that it was an absolute obligation to get onboard and to try to help others as much as I can.”
NHS Relief have also recruited doctor, television presenter, author and columnist – Dr Ranj Singh – who has joined to lend his weight and support from the perspective of a member working with the NHS on the frontline. He explains; “The NHS is a big part of my life and I know how important it is and how important it is right now. Anything we can do to boost morale and make people on the frontline feel more appreciated is vital, because they’re doing an incredible job for all of us. This is a really lovely thing to do for them in return.”
Asking the brothers how the project came about, Dominic mentioned, “In times like this it is a case of fight or flight. We wanted to lend our full support behind the NHS and front line. Our creative team has grown to over 120 people who have been an inspiration in the way they have embraced this wonderful project”. Alexander adds: “This is about unity within the creative industry and showing solidarity behind the brave people fighting Covid 19 on all our behalves. We could not be more grateful to those people and hope our fundraising efforts make a material difference”.
‘Lean on Me’ is available on all platforms now: http://smarturl.it/nhs-lean-on-me
You can donate to support the NHS here. 100% of all proceeds go to charity, split between ‘NHS Charities Together’, and ‘You Okay, Doc?’, who support the mental health of doctors and healthcare professionals.
EVCOM recently released our own charity film project, called ‘These Are The Hands’, to support the NHS. You can find out more about that here.