Something Happens When a Poet
Meets a Composer
INDEX
Duncan
Duncan
Duncan
Laurence
Songs Performed by:
The Band of Golden Light
“The album - a collection of songs that lay forgotten in old drawers and suitcases for nearly thirty-five years, only to be rescued from obscurity and reimagined for a new generation. These are songs co-created by a songwriting team bound by an unbreakable bond, demonstrating that the magic in their songs was always destined to be heard. Kitchen Table Poets is more than an album. It is a monument to the timeless power of songs that refuse to be forgotten.”
The Healthy Referral Newspaper, 2026
"Our Special Thanks to: The Poets Foundation for
the unending support and work that helped
make Kitchen Table Poets a reality."
Bake & McGill
The Masterpiece ~ Dedicated to Hank Williams
The River
Dedications: This album is dedicated to Irene, Shannon and Kyle McGill, Campbell, Donna, Gallian & Gabriella Bake, and grandchildren all.
The Band Of Golden Light
She Believes In Me
Say I Do
She Believes: Words & Music by Duncan McGill
The Sailor
The Confession
Dedicated to Elisabeth and staff at the Burns Agency, Edinburgh, Scotland. The spirit lives on.
When You Need a Friend
All The Way
Need A Friend: Words & Music by Laurence (Ren)
Cindee
Last Kiss
Last Kiss:: Words & Music by Laurence (Ren)
The Picture Below: “During 1989 - 1991 Laurence (Ren) and Duncan performed LIVE in concert. The 6 piece group became known as The Poet Ren & The Band Of Golden Light, with Laurence doing live spoken word poetry and Duncan on lead guitar and lead vocals. Historically, their work predated what would soon become the international Spoken Word movement. This album cover picture is a digital composite of the rare few pictures of the two artists at that time that have survived. But those who did see them in concert together never forgot the experience, it is said.”
Ann Anderson, Project Manager, 2026
Bake / McGill Archive 1980s - 1990s
Where the Music Begins
Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, somebody is sitting at a kitchen table.
Perhaps there's a cup of coffee or tea nearby. Perhaps they're wearing old blue jeans or a pair of sweatpants. There's a guitar leaning against a chair, or a piano within reach. There are no recording contracts on the table, no expensive studio, no audience waiting for applause.
Just a person, an idea, and the quiet hope that something worthwhile might come of it. And perhaps, if the circumstances are kind, that idea will become a song.
We tend to think of music in terms of what eventually surrounds it: the great recording studios, the extraordinary performers, the lights, the applause, the records that find their way into millions of homes. We hear the Beatles, Beethoven, or a folk song sung beside a fireside, and we encounter the finished work.
But every piece of music has a beginning. Before the orchestra, before the recording, before anybody else hears a note, there is somebody sitting somewhere, trying to bring something into existence.
It is a humble business, this business of making music.
And it is from that humble beginning that Kitchen Table Poets takes its name.
A Poet, a Composer, and a Meeting of Minds
The story of these songs began around 1984, when E. Lawrence Bake (ELB), also known as REN, and Duncan James McGill began working together as songwriters.
They already knew one another through their involvement in a band. It soon became apparent to ELB that Duncan possessed a natural flair for melody and vocals. When the two began collaborating, another quality revealed itself: Duncan seemed able to hear the music in ELB's poetry.
The words came first. The music followed.
Yet the process was rarely quite that simple. Sometimes a melody from Duncan would spark an idea for a poem. At other times, ELB would arrive with a poem that was nearly complete. Either way, these were starting points, not finished songs.
Writing a poem is one craft. Composing music is another. Bringing words and music together to create a song is a craft of its own.
When two people undertake that work together, something more is required than simply combining their individual talents. There must be listening, adjustment, patience, and a willingness to allow an idea to become something neither person might have imagined at the outset.
It becomes a fine dance of coordinated creativity.
And so, over a period of roughly four years, the songs began to take shape.
The Songs That Nearly Weren't
There was no abundance of time, money, or opportunity.
Economic circumstances and the ordinary demands of life meant that almost every song required a Herculean effort. The two collaborators had to steal their moments together wherever and whenever they could find them.
A little time here. Another opportunity there. Whatever could be salvaged from the demands of the day.
It sometimes seemed as though life itself had decided these songs should never be written.
And yet, one by one, they were.
The songs were not created in some protected world where the only concern was artistic expression. They emerged from the margins of busy lives, from moments that had to be found rather than freely given. Their creation was an act of persistence as much as inspiration.
By 1992, the songwriting partnership had largely come to an end.
What remained was a collection of songs, a handful of recordings, and memories of the work that had gone into them. Most had never received anything approaching a full studio production. Only two, The Masterpiece and The Confession, had briefly made it into a recording studio, and even those sessions had been constrained by a minimal budget.
Many of the other songs survived on scratchy cassettes.
The kind of recordings that can be misplaced, damaged, or forgotten. The kind of recordings that, given enough time, can disappear altogether.
For years, the songs remained in that uncertain state: written, composed, and partly preserved, but never given the opportunity to become what they might be.
A Search Across the Years
In the years that followed, ELB continued to develop his skills as a musician and producer. He gradually mastered the craft of music production and built his own recording studio, equipped with sophisticated electronic keyboards and eventually advanced digital tools.
Then, around 2017, an idea began to take hold.
What if the Bake & McGill songs could be found? What if the old "kitchen table recordings could be brought into the present using the technology now available?
But, there was one considerable obstacle. ELB had lost track of Duncan.
It took another few years of searching before the two were reunited. Fortunately, both artists had retained some additional old recordings of their work. Pieces of the past had survived.
The search had not been in vain.
But finding the songs was only the beginning. The real question was what they would sound like when brought back to life. Would they hold up to the new musical world of 2025.
Yesterday, and Today
As ELB began working on the songs in his studio, something became increasingly apparent.
They did not sound dated.
Despite the years that had passed since their creation, the songs held up remarkably well. Duncan's melodies, ELB's words, and underlying ideas still had life in them. They did not feel like relics that needed to be preserved behind glass. They felt like songs that had been waiting for their opportunity.
That observation became the guiding principle for the entire project.
Every song had to measure up as though it had been written yesterday, if it was to be part of the album.
The objective was not simply to restore the past or to reproduce the original recordings. It was to give the music the performance, sound, and production it had never been able to receive. It needed an all new, previously unimagined, 2025 -26 version of The Band Of Golden Light to perform these songs.
Modern instruments, digital tools, recording techniques, and musical performances offered possibilities that had not been available when the songs were first written.
But technology alone could not determine which songs deserved a place on the album. That decision depended on the songs themselves. And more importantly,, could the new musical performances honour the original vision that these two artists shared when they wrote them.
Of the ten tracks selected for Kitchen Table Poets, eight came from the original Bake and McGill songwriting partnership. It was then determined that the album should include a few tracks written by Duncan James McGill, and Laurence independently. For they were both songwriters in their own right.
Together, they create an album that reaches across the years, connecting the work of the earlier partnership with the continuing creative lives of its two members.
Yesterday and today, sharing the same table.
The Band of Golden Light
The Band of Golden Light was founded by Laurence and Duncan in the 1980s.
It was never simply a fixed group of musicians. It was an ensemble of invited players, singers, and special guests, brought together to perform the music. They performed live as REN (Laurence's nick name) and The Band Of Golden Light. In later years Laurence's initials ELB would surface as part of his other artistic activities, like his writings and paintings. Thus, ELB And The Band...
With this new album the spirit of that original band continues in the present, although the means of making the music have changed dramatically.
The technology is different. The circumstances are different. But the underlying purpose remains the same: to bring the songs to life.
The Band of Golden Light is not merely a name attached to a recording. It represents the musicianship, performance, and production that stand between a songwriter's idea and the music another person finally gets to hear.
A Tribute To Songwriters
Kitchen Table Poets is a tribute to songwriters everywhere.
To those who labour over a line of lyric or poetry, searching for the right melody, or spending an evening trying to make a song say what they know it can say.
To those whose work may never reach a professional studio. To those with old scraps of paper tucked into drawers, unfinished recordings on forgotten cassettes, or new ideas waiting to be developed. The world hears the finished song, when it hears it at all. It seldom sees the hours, the uncertainty, the revisions, or the persistence that brought it into existence.
And many songs never get that far.
They remain unheard, not necessarily because they lack merit, but because the opportunity to develop, record, perform, and present them has never arrived.
The story behind this album is a reminder that the value of an artist or a song cannot be judged by the circumstances in which it was created, the quality of its earliest recording, or the number of people who have heard it.
Sometimes, a song needs nothing more than time, attention, a talented performer, and the opportunity to become what it was always capable of being. And it may be that only then will the true talent of the artist behind it be revealed.
Those old scraps of paper and scratchy cassettes may hold something of far greater value than anyone imagined.
The same may be true of the new scrap of paper sitting on a kitchen table tonight.
Somewhere A Song Is Beginning
There is something rather wonderful about the thought that, while we listen to the finished recordings on Kitchen Table Poets. or enjoy the works of great musicians, other people are quietly beginning their own musical journeys.
Somewhere, a writer is finding the words.
Somewhere, a composer is searching for a melody.
Somewhere, two people are discovering that their separate ideas can become something greater when they work together.
They may have no studio, no budget, and no reason to believe that anybody beyond their immediate circle will ever hear what they create.
But the song begins anyway.
That is the spirit behind Kitchen Table Poets. It is the story of ten songs that began in ordinary circumstances, survived years of uncertainty, and were finally brought into the world with the care and attention they deserved.
It is also a tribute to the countless songs whose stories have yet to be told.
Because as long as there is music being composed and words being written, there will be a kitchen table somewhere.
And on that table, there may be the beginnings of something extraordinary.
KITCHEN TABLE POETS
CREDITS
Words & Music by Bake and McGill
Recorded at The Poet's Studio USA/Can
Performed by The Band of Golden Light
Funding: The Poets Foundation
Ann Anderson, Executive Director
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From the E. Laurence Bake Archive 1980 - 1990s
Contact Laurence (ELB) & Duncan Today!
Comments & Questions Welcome
CREDITS
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ELB and the Band of Golden Light
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Words and Music E. Laurence Bake
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Produced by ELB at The Poet's Studio
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Copyright 2025-26 The Poets Foundation
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Ann Anderson, Executive Director
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Works from the E. Laurence Bake Archive
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