When it came to writing the original song on her debut album, Jemma Cher wrote the lyrics in the Uber on the way to the recording studio. Cher has never been one to force the writing process. Referring to the song, I’ll Stay, as “an emotional ballad but musically sophisticated”.
Cher explained that her brother Gideon wrote the music so she could hear it over and over again and let the words fall into place.
“I was waiting for the right things to say, I didn’t want it to feel fake, I wanted it to be real, and I didn’t want it to be over-produced,” she told The AJN.
I’ll Stay is the only original song on Cher’s debut album Let’s Do It, which features arranged covers of a wide variety of songs – from ballads to musical theatre, folk, blues and cinematic orchestrations.
Cher and her band have been performing together since 2023. During a year of sold-out shows, Cher was approached by audience members asking where they could listen to her music. But apart from the live shows, Cher had nothing to offer. So she decided to change that.
“I started to feel like it was a missed opportunity. I was performing to crowds but no one could go home and share my music,” she explained. “I wanted a tangible body of work for my very first body of work. I wanted something that I can feel and see, it’s actually in the world, not just sitting on a digital platform,” she said. “It creates a nice connection between me and the audience, and they get to go home with an old-style record that they can play in their house, that has a different feel to it if you played it on Apple Music. And it’s also a piece of art.”
The band, which is mostly made up of Jewish musicians, including Cher’s musical director, Simon Starr, recorded Let’s Do It over two days, in the immediate aftermath of October 7.
“The idea for this album was to keep it as high energy and live-music feeling as possible. We recorded two days after October 7, and we tried to channel some of the energy we were feeling through the music. So it created some powerful energy,” she recalled. “We were all there together, facing the same things. Rather than postponing our lives and our work, we decided that we could be strong and push through to record the record.”
Cher explained that the first song they recorded – Wayfaring Stranger – felt especially fitting as it’s an old folk tune about going home to Jordan.
“It started off the day on a strong foot, and we felt strong the whole way through,” Cher said, crediting Starr for making sure the day was a moving experience for everyone involved.
Eight tracks were recorded on the first day – the brand-new arrangements that had been written – so that the team could focus on two songs on the second day.
The first being Cher’s collaboration with Lior.
“I came across Sonja which is written by Lior and I fell in love with the piece. I showed it to Simon and he encouraged me to put it on our set list, not to rearrange it because I loved it as it was,” Cher recalled, explaining that when she decided to include it on the album, she contacted Lior to ask for his permission. To Cher’s surprise and honour, Lior offered to collaborate on the song.
“I was over the moon, he’s one of my favourite artists and musicians. He is so generous and so giving, he was so supportive. I just called to ask permission and he was generous enough to offer his time. He was an artist growing up that I would listen to, so to have him on my very first record was probably one of the most special aspects of the recording,” Cher said.
The other highlight of Cher’s record is her original song, I’ll Stay. While she had no intention of including an original song on the album, she said there was just “something” about the song.
“There are aspects of it that are about our grandfather, but aspects of it that refer to what everyone else in the world feels, which is losing somebody and being burdened with the idea of wishing that you had said more,” Cher explained. “Putting that feeling into music made me realise that speaking to someone for the very last time doesn’t reflect your whole relationship.”
When asked what she hopes audiences feel while listening to her music, Cher said she “genuinely hopes they feel everything.”
“What I mean by that is that I didn’t want to create boundaries for myself with my first record. I didn’t want to stay in one genre, it’s a genre-blending record. It’s high energy, high emotion because you don’t know what’s coming next. There are elements of jazz, cinema, elements of ballad, blues, and it all just comes together in one record, and it can suit lots of different styles of people and lots of different styles of music.”
Jemma Cher will be launching Let’s Do It at a special concert at Memo Music Hall where she will perform five extra surprise tracks. For tickets, visit jemmacher.com/gigs
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