Making beautiful music together once more
What happens when former sweethearts see each other after 20 years of living separate lives? Do sparks fly at once? Do their hearts go a-flutter? Do they hem and haw in front of each other?
Ask Joey Albert and Louie Ocampo, the singer and musical director-composer who literally and figuratively played beautiful music together for four years until fate tore them apart. Both are now happy with their respective families. Joey, who got married in 1988, has two daughters. Louie tied the knot two years after and has four children.
They have since lived in opposite sides of the globe: Joey in
It all started when Joey made a surprise call to Louie. Would Louie be interested to do a concert in the
Louie’s initial reactions were surprise and yes, nervousness. After recovering from the surprise, he said, “Why not?”
Louie is familiar with Gawad Kalinga since his parents are involved with the project as members of Couples for Christ.
But before anyone gets any ideas, Joey declares, “It was a business proposal more than anything else.”
When friends got wind of the deal, they broached an even better idea: Why not kick off the shows in
Sandra Chavez of Artist House was sold to the idea. Freddie Santos agreed to write and direct the show. And the original designer of Joey’s gowns when she was still active in the performance circuit volunteered to get back to work again.
The date was set: Aug. 3 and 4 at the
After all, wasn’t Tell Me, which Louie composed after breaking up with a girlfriend, Joey’s biggest hit? So big a hit was it, Star Cinema has decided to revive it as the theme song of the upcoming movie, A Love Story.
Other Joey-Louie hits came after: Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin, Yakapin Mo Ako, Points of View, Iisa Pa Lamang. But none of these came close to the impact Tell Me created.
These songs not only made the Joey-Louie teamup the tandem to beat. It started a friendship that blossomed into romance and has since then settled down to warm, comfortable rapport between two artists.
Call it creative synergy or a meeting of musical minds.
“Ideas would spark every time we are together,” observes Joey.
Could it be that the Joey-Louie teamup spawned another singer-musical director romance — that of Jamie Rivera and Jimmy Antiporda (now both married to somebody else)? No one can tell.
But the fact that another singer and musical director fell in love after Joey and Louie did makes this a logical conclusion. But that’s another story.
This story is about a singer who marveled, not only at her musical director’s sheer talent, but in his “compassion and tendency to spoil me.” Louie, on the other hand, admits he fell for Joey’s cariñosa ways.
Betwen the music and the romance, the former came first. The relationship was just a natural offshoot of the music. To this day, Joey keeps Louie’s compositions, done in his own handwriting, way before technology made it convenient to write music through computers and synthesizers.
Joey took these compositions out of her baul and brought them all the way from
The repertoire reads like a list of ‘80s hits, with Joey trying to convince Louie to include Way Back Into Love, the theme from the Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore starrer Music & Lyrics.
Joey and Louie’s story, after all, is similar to that of the
The two have no regrets.
“It got to be so complicated, we didn’t know if we were together because of the music or because of the relationship,” recalls Joey.
She now looks at what happened as a blessing in disguise.
“Maybe we went our separate ways so we could be happy with our respective families,” Joey muses.
Louie agrees: “When God closes a door, He opens a window. The most important thing is we're both happy with our respective families.”
And they have their music to hold on to , even if they lead separate lives.
- Latest
- Trending
