Magical kids' tale set to shine after 50 years
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A VALENTINE'S Day discovery has led to a magical children's tale seeing the light of day decades after it was first conceived.
The Glitterstone was to become the life's work of the late Dave White, an accomplished player of the drums, guitar and keyboards, which first came to life in the 1970s and was on the verge of being made into a Disney-style animated tale for youngsters, as well as a novel and play.
However, the project later had to be shelved before being rediscovered by his widow, Barbi, on Valentine's Day last year in the Cullen home they had shared together.
In a drive to ensure her late husband gets the recognition she wholeheartedly believes he deserves The Glitterstone has now been made available to the public to enjoy for the very first time.
Barbi said: "I first met Dave back in 1979 and he had nurtured the idea for The Glitterstone in his head since the mid-seventies.
"He wanted me to write the story and he would do the musical side, although I wasn't keen at that time – I told Dave 'I read books, I don't write them'.
"Dave moved up to Scotland and he would visit and talk about The Glitterstone but we lost touch for about 10 years after that. When we did finally meet up again he asked if I remembered The Glitterstone. He'd done 84 pages of the story, which needed a lot of work, and we sat done and storyboarded it all and wrote the novel together.
"By 1993 we were ready to go. Dave had managed to borrow a studio-quality Tascam 644 and recorded 11 songs on it and we had an animator from Devon ready to do his side of things. However, the sheer cost of transforming The Glitterstone into what we wanted was the main stumbling block and we were out looking for funding."
Fate was to deal the couple, who had fallen head over heels for each after renewing their initial friendship, a cruel blow on the cusp of making the The Glitterstone a reality Barbi became very ill, which was to leave her disabled. It necessitated a major shift in the Whites' way of life and by the turn of dawn of the 21st century the project had been forced far into the background.
January 13, 2018 was to bring tragedy and heartbreak for Barbi when her soulmate passed away suddenly. It was to lead her into a search to uncover Dave's extensive creative talent, searches for which in the house had drawn a blank, and on a trail to bring The Glitterstone back to life.
"It became clear that the only place Dave's original recordings – which were all on cassettes, not digital format – could be was in the loft," she continued.
"However, because of my disability I couldn't get up there so I had to get some friends to hunt through it for me.
"Hours and hours of searching turned up nothing so there was nothing for it but to empty the loft box by box and go through them. A friend of mine, Andrew, brought them down week after week and it was on Valentine's Day 2019 he said 'There's a box of tapes here'.
"What a treasure trove it was, going back to the early '70s. To find these again, especially on Valetine's Day, was very, very emotional for me."
Among around 100 musical gems was the long-lost Glitterstone. However, this was just the beginning of the story.
"It was an incredible piece of good fortune finding it again but that was just the start.
"To record out from a Tascam, you have to use another Tascam, preferably the one which was used in the first place. I eventually managed to track it down, a search which went from Edinburgh to London and eventually to a place outside Forres.
"I then had to learn to use it and mix the songs.
"In addition to The Glitterstone I've not got over 100 of Dave's songs registered with the PRS which I'm hoping to release in the future."
Almost 50 years after the project emerged in Dave's creative imagination, The Glitterstone is available on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and other digital platforms. It is also available as a CD costing £9.99 including postage and packing direct from Barbi – barbiwhite@hotmail.com – and comes with four sides of artwork related to the musical play. It is listed as by Dave White Superstar and All Round Good Kind of Guy, Dave’s jokey nickname for himself.
Barbi added: "The Glitterstone was Dave's life's work and I want to honour him and give him the recognition he never got in his lifetime.
"He had the soul of a poet and was an incredibly talented musician; he was the most talented person I've ever met and had an incredible life.
"Dave wasn't only a very talented musician and poet, he was the nicest person you could've wanted to meet, a cheerful and helpful soul.
"I get a great deal of comfort listening to his work and I hope a lot of other people will enjoy it, too.
"As Dave said, The Glitterstone is a story for the child in all of us old enough to admit it."
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