Altadena, California – March 26, 2024 – Platinum-selling songwriters Lisa Simmons-Santa Cruz and Francisco Carroll Santa Cruz found themselves crafting gospel tracks for Snoop dogg’s upcoming 2025 album, “Altar Call,” while temporarily displaced by a devastating wildfire.
Finding Harmony Amidst Loss: musicians Collaborate with Snoop Dogg After Fire
The couple channeled their trauma into a creative partnership, completing the project despite losing their home in the eaton fire.
- The Eaton fire displaced songwriters lisa Simmons-Santa Cruz and Francisco Carroll Santa Cruz.
- Despite losing their home, they completed work on Snoop Dogg’s “Altar Call” album.
- MusiCares provided crucial financial and emotional support to musicians impacted by the wildfires.
- The couple emphasized the healing power of music during a arduous time.
How did musicians facing personal loss contribute to a major gospel album? Simmons-Santa Cruz and carroll Santa Cruz, veterans of the music industry with over 29 years of experience writing and producing for artists like Kelly Rowland and television shows such as “Desperate Housewives,” were living in a hotel when they received the opportunity to work with Snoop Dogg. The offer came through artists Charlie Bereal and Point 5ve during the final week of their temporary housing.
“We were actually writing all those songs in a hotel, displaced,” Carroll Santa Cruz said.
The couple had lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire a few months prior, a loss they initially kept private from their industry peers, even Snoop Dogg, who had established a donation centre for fire victims.
“We needed something the fire couldn’t burn and that was our music,” Simmons-Santa Cruz explained. “At that time, we needed something separate from the fire – something that the fire couldn’t touch, it was too traumatic to keep revisiting what we’d lost, so our work became our peace and our escape.”
The couple, who shared their home with Simmons-Santa Cruz’s 77-year-old mother since 1974, faced the daunting task of rebuilding their lives while navigating insurance claims and financial burdens following the fire. They turned to MusiCares, a health and welfare charity for musicians founded in 1989 by the Recording Academy, for assistance.
“They were like, the FEMA of the music industry,” Simmons-Santa Cruz said.
According to Theresa Wolters, executive director of MusiCares, the organization has directed more than $15 million toward relief and recovery efforts, assisting over 3,200 music professionals affected by the Los Angeles wildfires in the year following the disaster.
Sanford said.
