Free Concert and Music Video Debut with Chris + Gileah Jan 18

An idea was formed and a creative collaboration created during a musical moment at last year's 30A Songwriters Festival. Richard Olivarez, Director of Marketing for festival sponsor Ocean Reef Resorts was at the Vue on 30A in Dune Allen listening to a performance by husband and wife duo Chris and Gileah Taylor. During their set, Richard heard them play a sweet song entitled White Florida Sun.  Inspiration struck and now a year later the idea has taken form as a music video for the song, filmed along the beaches of South Walton and around Destin Harbor.

To celebrate the release of the video and to preview an upcoming album by Chris + Gileah, stop by Ocean Reef's 30A office on Saturday, Jan. 18th from 6-9 p. m. at 9961 Scenic 30A between Alys Beach & Rosemary Beach. The free concert will coincide with this year’s 30A Songwriters Festival. Local radio station 102.1 the Wave will be on site doing a live broadcast, there will be free beer and wine, and Alligator Pear will be serving Fusion Mexican-inspired Tortas.

There will be an audio recording of the event and parts of it will be included as an extra feature on the upcoming album release of Chris+ Gileah. Their set will include White Florida Sun in addition to new songs to be featured on an upcoming album and some of the back story behind the creation of their songs.There will also be two other performances by local musicians - Shawn Brown and Jeremy Gibson.

The idea behind hosting a live performance is to connect with locals and visitors in an intimate and unique environment.  We are opening up our South Walton office to everyone and hoping to host an authentic and memorable experience.  At the same time, we are sharing beautiful music that is inspired by our beaches and the people who live here.

Preview the music video and download the track free at www.whitefloridasun.com.

Both Chris and Gileah are accomplished solo professional musicians living here in South Walton. Although they are husband and wife, their upcoming album will be their first full album together. Gileah has produced four albums independently. Her third album was Gileah and the Ghost Train, a collaboration with Ava Quigley Griffith and Kevin Woerner, recorded just steps from the Gulf of Mexico.

Chris has produced two albums, the first independently and the second Take Me Anywhere, released on EMI’s BEC Recordings. When Chris was just one month into his second national tour he had to rush home to experience the birth of their daughter, Mercie, born two months early. Chris never returned to resume the tour and decided he was needed more in South Walton to be with his family, and he missed the beach.

Chris and Gileah both continued their separate careers as songwriters, with several of the songs receiving national airtime. Gileah decided she wanted to do another album - she’d write a song and ask Chris to sing it. The combination of their two musical styles blend seamlessly and the result promises to be their best album yet, due to be released later this year. The husband and wife duo reached out  to Allen Salmon, a friend and talented Nashville producer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist, to release their debut album independently.

Richard D. Olivarez, Director of Marketing for Ocean Reef Resorts, writes the behind-the-scenes story about the video:

Our Director of Photography Mark Little and I came up with the idea at a meal after Chris + Gileah performed at the Vue last year (during the festival). We dove into the video with a little bit of outside help from friends, but for the most part it was an in-house project. The idea was to portray the vacation lifestyle of South Walton and Destin in a fun and engaging way, and of course provide a music video for a song we instantly fell in love with. Being at the Songwriters Festival and experiencing the work of so many talented artists at some truly remarkable venues inspired us to push our level of creative marketing to a new level.

Our group was involved in all aspects including some of the actual filming. The video features key members of our team.  The couple on the beach is vacation specialist Luc Stadleman and his wife Michelle, the guy walking around with the skateboard is Mark Little, and stealing the show are our amazing rental properties – without which none of this would be possible.