On: Faith

Faith…
I sat in my favorite chair. I knew it was time to figure the problem out. I had been struggling with it for over a year and needed to get my arms around it because I knew it was a great idea and great ideas just don’t come along that often.

Flash back one year. Jenny Burton and I have just finished a show in Boca Raton and are driving up the coast of Florida. We get into a long discussion about her career and where it’s going. We have this great idea! We shall put together a group of 9 of our favorite NY studio singers behind her and do a show of Inspirational music.

We’ve been doing very successful industrial shows exploring this Gospel/R&B based genre using 3 singers in the studio and triple tracking them for a particular sound that has really been captivating audiences. We’ve developed this music to a very specific sound behind Jenny and know from years’ experience that we’ve found something that really works. Now we should commercialize it and move it into the mainstream.

And so, determined to see this through, I begin to explore ways of financing and developing this idea. I find it’s not easy. It’s expensive! Ten singers… and we don’t even have a band yet.

In the course of the year, however, four different situations do come up which will provide the means for getting this idea on. Sadly, they all fall through. Bummer.

So here I am sitting in my favorite chair. I do not have the money for this big idea. I know it’s a right idea, but something seems to stop it at every turn. Frustrated…

I have no ideas, I have no money, I have nothing.

I have faith, but what is faith? Yeah, come to think of it, what is faith? I sit and contemplate this word. I realize that in order to have faith one must start with nothing. If you have something, a glimmer, a dollar, a possibility, etc., then you don’t need faith, you just start with a glimmer, a dollar, a possibility, etc. Faith is for when you have nothing.

Then you have to have faith in faith. And since you have nothing, it only makes sense to have a total reliance on faith because what other choice do you have? You have nothing, but faith. So do that. Have nothing but faith.

This means that you can’t have doubt, Pete, I say to myself. You can only have faith. If you have a choice between having nothing or having nothing and faith, what do you choose? Duh.

I saw and understood this simple logic. It made total sense to me. All I had to do was to have faith, but I had to have total faith. That was easy because I had nothing. So I decided then and there to have total faith.

“Faith in what?” you might ask. Faith in a right idea. I believe that God gives a right idea and sees it through? So I must have total faith in this right idea.

I even thought if you have total faith and then it still doesn’t work out, then you don’t have to deal with this word “faith” any more. You can dismiss it as a sham and move on to other things. So let’s find out, Pete. HAVE TOTAL FAITH!

And so I did. At that point I got up from my favorite chair and went to bed, clear that now the idea was going to happen.

The next morning I got up, called the nine singers, explained my great idea, told them I had no money, but was going to do this on faith, invited them to join me and they all said ‘yes’ immediately and we went into rehearsal the next week.

The group, The Jenny Burton Experience, broke all box office records and played to packed houses in their more than seven year run at New York City’s “Don’t Tell Mama” and swept all the major music awards in New York City for best vocal group.

They then performed for tens of thousands of people at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Carnegie Hall, opened for Al Green at Trump Marina, opened for Stevie Wonder at Lincoln Center, and headlined at Resorts International in Atlantic City.

It started on faith and nothing but. The following lyric is to one of the groups closing songs:

FAITH
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

AS I SIT WITH MY HEAD IN MY HAND
AND FIGHT FOR THE WAY TO BREAK FREE
KNOWING NOTHING AROUND ME
HAS GONE AS PLANNED
AND NOW IT IS ALL UP TO ME

WHEN NOTHING IS LEFT TO HOLD ON TO
AND NOWHERE IS THERE TO TURN
THE FIRE CONSUMING THE SPIRIT WITHIN ME
TILL NOTHING IS LEFT TO BURN

WHEN OUT OF THE DARKENING SHADOWS
A VOICE A WHISPER A SIGN
THE SIMPLEST OF ANSWERS
AT THE HARDEST OF TIMES
A LIGHT CALLING OUT TO THE BLIND

WHEN ALL IS LOST
HAVE FAITH
HAVE FAITH

FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAIN
FAITH CAN WALK THE SEA
FAITH CAN HEAL THE HEARTACHE
FAITH ALONE CAN COMFORT ME
AND IN YOUR TRIALS OF FIRE
FAITH CAN SEE YOU THROUGH
FAITH REQUIRES
NO MAGIC NO MONEY
NO MIRRORS NO MAYBES
NO MATCHES NO MAKE-UP
NO MANUAL NO MEDICINE
JUST FAITH

SO WHEN NOTHING IS LEFT TO HOLD ON TO
AND NOWHERE IS THERE TO TURN
WHEN THE FIRE’S CONSUMING THE SPIRIT WITHIN YOU
TILL NOTHING IS LEFT TO BURN
WHEN ALL SEEMS LOST
HAVE FAITH
HAVE FAITH

FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAIN
FAITH CAN WALK THE SEA
FAITH CAN HEAL THE HEARTACHE
FAITH ALONE CAN COMFORT ME
AND IN YOUR TRIALS OF FIRE
FAITH CAN SEE YOU THROUGH
FAITH REQUIRES
NO MAGIC NO MONEY
NO MIRRORS NO MAYBES
NO MATCHES NO MAKE-UP
NO MANUAL NO MEDICINE
JUST FAITH
FAITH

FAITH CAN HEAL YOU
AND FAITH CAN COMFORT YOU
FAITH WILL WALK WITH YOU
THERE’S NO MEDICINE JUST FAITH

FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAIN
OH YEAH!

So, have faith…

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For more information about Watchfire Music and their artists,
please visit us at Watchfire Music.com, or click on the blog entry's title and be automatically redirected to our site.

Insight-Mindy Jostyn

Mindy Jostyn

I worked with Toots Thielman, some say the greatest harmonica player of our time, and as a child my dad would take the whole family to see The Harmonicats whenever they were in town.

Also we’d always catch Johnny Puleo (a virtuoso midget harmonica player) when he would appear on TV. In my teenage years, working as a cowboy summers in Colorado I learned to play sitting around campfires at night.

It was after that I began to discover the wonders of Slim Harpo, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter, Larry Adler, Paul Butterfield and yes, the wonder of Stevie Wonder. I never got that good on the thing, never practiced enough. But I’ve always deeply appreciated the music that pours from these little “child toys” when handled by a virtuoso.

Word had it that Mindy Jostyn could also play that thang. I produced the last album of her too short life and towards the end one day she said, “Let’s put a little blues harp on this song”. I set up the mic, sat back in my producer’s chair and listened to her go to work.

This was a month before she left us and already she was so weak from coughing that she couldn’t sing, but could she ever blow. What came out of her that day was pure genius – a command of the instrument that shocked me, a gut wrenching bluesy funk that made me laugh and cry at the same time and a celebration of life that I will never forget.

She couldn’t sing anymore, so she sang through this “toy”. She joined the ranks that day in my book. I thought then, “Oh my God, I’m gonna study with her and learn what she knows”.

Too late.

Mindy mastered many instruments – guitar, piano, fiddle, her voice. Harmonica was her best. I know. I was there that day.

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For more information about Peter Link and his company, Watchfire Music,
please visit us at Watchfire Music.com, or click on the blog entry's title and be automatically redirected to our website.

Insight-Larry Steelman

Larry Steelman
Now here’s a talent. This guy is prolific as well. He sends me 2-3 new songs a week from his new works to listen to, and listen to I do. And I can’t get these songs out of my head. And he’s persistent!

At first I thought, “Lord, this guy’s gonna drive me crazy pushing his music on me”, but now I simply look forward to the next one. Larry Steelman’s gonna go far. Mark my word. He’s got talent. He’s got drive.

Also he’s got the music in him. Ain’t God good? What a gift he gives us. What a joy to go through this lifetime and have the music in ya’! Larry Steelman is just one of those fortunate human beings.

Way to go, God!

Check out Larry Steelman’s CD on Watchfire Music’s site, or click on the blog entry's title and be automatically redirected to our site.

On: Writer's Block

I’m not a writer who’s worried about writer’s block. I’ve learned where creativity comes from — God. The first thing I do when I sit down to compose is to pray because it puts me in tune with the force that I know to be God. My watchword is, “The worst things I write come from me; the best things I write come through me.” So, I titled my own album, “Thru Me.”

The creative process is really about connecting to God – connecting to the source of inspiration. I understand that if I connect myself with God, who is All, I connect myself with the allness of life — all the energy, spirit, soul, and beauties of truth.

Then, once I’ve connected, if I have the human mechanical ability to orchestrate, play the guitar, piano, etc., I do my part in the creative process. It’s a collaboration with God or a collaboration with the allness of life. God is the source of creativity, and we humans invent the story line or arrange the musical notes. God supplies the impetus.

I also find that if I do move into the moment that most writers recognize as writer’s block – when the creative juices just aren’t there or the ideas just aren’t flowing, that it means that I’m either not God connected or I simply don’t know enough about my subject. So I go to work. If I’m not God connected, I stop and connect – close my eyes, pray, focus on the simple truths of life, meditate on the source of my inspiration, even simply watch my breathing. I don’t need to do this for more than a minute or so to find my connection. Then I go back to the work at hand.

If I am still blocked, I do my part in the collaboration. I research my subject. I learn more about it, I try to look at it from different angles, I try to think more deeply about the moment

I’m all about being in the moment. I find that when I’m truly in the moment and surrounded by the ideas of the subject, full of the research that I have done, pregnant with the insights I have dreamed, then I’m ready to write. I’ll be on the piano or sitting with the guitar, and something in me will tell me to turn on the recorder, because here it comes. It’s not magic; it’s preparation. It’s about knowing my subject. It’s about having my own special corner on life and getting to the essence of that.

Neil Simon once told me that he doesn’t get writer’s block because he writes every day. He stays in shape – like an athlete. I’ve found this to be a great life lesson. I stay in shape to write by writing. And if for whatever reason I’m unable to write each day (sometimes life just takes me in other directions) I can get back to the flow pretty quickly.

If I haven’t written lately, I will always take the first day back and just play (a warm up), put no demands on myself for that day, just play in the music or the words, jot down phrases that come to mind, sing a few songs, become one again with my guitar and most importantly, put no pressure on myself to “come up with something”. This way the flow begins naturally – the flow with God and idea. It’s all a part of the research.

Then, usually, the next day starts with an excitement for the process, not a fear of blank. I keep pressure at bay by focusing on the truths of the concept. If nothing comes, I go back and tighten my concept. I’ve always said that if you can’t make a decision, then you just don’t know enough about your subject. Decisions should make themselves. When I’m fully prepared or fully informed, there’s no decision to make because the truth is revealed by the preparation. Work flows because I’m prepared and excited about communicating a clear idea.

Summary: Don’t buy into writer’s block. Don’t make a mysterious thing of it like it is some mental disease. It’s just another word for lack of research, lack of focus and mostly, lack of connection to the source.

Get connected. Do the research. Let it flow.

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For more information about Peter Link and his company, Watchfire Music,
please visit us at Watchfire Music.com, or click on the blog entry's title and be automatically redirected to our site.

On: Interrupting

Interrupting - We’re becoming a nation of interrupters and interruptions. It’s starting to drive me a little batty.

Television is the worst offender. Scary thing is that television is such a trendsetter and we, the sheep, follow blindly along. Television is built on interruptions – the commercial. We’re sailing along through a good story or a great game and suddenly (often designed to come at the best part of the story) whammo, we’re interrupted out of our reverie with a commercial. We’ve learned to live with this over the years – it being the commercial that enabled free television, but then along came cable and TV wasn’t free anymore. Money wins. But as I’ve said, we’ve learned to live with it.

Now, however, they’ve decided that they have the right to take over a quarter to a third of our screen during the regular program and make their announcements, doing whatever silly thing they can think of to grab our attention graphically and sonically.

Mark my word, soon we’ll see product commercials in these spots as well. Why do we stand for this kind of interruption? It’s just going to get worse and worse and we all know it.

Tune in to just about any news talk show now and it’s just ridiculous. No one can finish a sentence. It started with the hosts who in their overwhelming egos would not let their guests finish. I can just imagine some lightweight producer saying, “Oh, I like this style. It makes for such good, fast television. It’s like reality news – just the way people talk.” What it is is just a bunch of people pushing to get heard.

Interrupting stimulates frustration which creates anger which results in fighting. This is what these people seem to be doing all the time now. Whatever happened to the rules of debate? Whoever said it was a good idea to not let an expert guest make his point?

We, as a society, are losing our ability to listen – to listen to one another. Interrupting is the classic result of that. Break it down. People who interrupt are people who have stopped listening and feel that what they have to say in the moment is more important than the person who is talking. This is the ultimate breakdown in communication. This is anti-communication.

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For more information about Peter Link and his company, Watchfire Music,
please visit us at Watchfire Music.com.

In The Presence of Greatness

Last night I sat in the presence of greatness. I have spent many years coaching leaders in the art of public speaking. To stand in front of an audience, command or invite their attention and then enthrall them with ideas is an extremely skilled and gifted endeavor. Anyone who has ever given a speech before knows of its nerves, its dry mouth, its verbal stumblings, its pitfalls. Last night I watched it done very well – and to an audience of millions.

Whether you are for Barak Obama or not, this historical moment must go down as a moment of greatness. What is greatness? I’ve thought about it a lot since then and my own homespun definition would be, “the ability to succeed beyond expectations at an extremely important moment in life”. We all delight in these moments of our fellow man and woman because it is a measure of our own capability. It is mankind at its best.

In sports we all marvel at the greatness of Michael Jordan or Joe Montana and most recently the greatness of Michael Phelps. Dwight Eisenhower had such a moment on the night of June 5, 1944. John Kennedy rose to greatness at the Bay of Pigs. In the world of entertainment I have watched supreme moments of greatness in the performances of Barbara Streisand, Elton John and James Taylor.

A few human beings have even lived lives of greatness – Jesus, Guatama Buddha, Mother Teresa – to name three. And then there are the moments by the un-named and unremembered except for their acts – the mother who lifts the car off of her baby, the farmer who works all night to cover his crops before the frost, the child who plays her recital piece with perfection.

But last night I got to sit and watch a man stand in his own greatness and shed great light on all mankind with his endeavor. It simply made me feel better about myself that man could rise to such heights. It made me proud to be an American once again, yes, but more importantly, it made me proud and awed to be a part of mankind. Whether he makes a good president or not, he succeeded beyond expectations in, so far, what may have been the most important moment of his life standing on the pinnacle of world attention.
I sat and studied greatness in action and I am blessed for it.

A Corner On Truth

I think about truth a lot. It’s fast becoming my life’s greatest interest – far out-pacing money, music and the Yankees. Daily dealings with all the various concepts of the word “Inspirational” seem to focus my life more and more on the spiritual, and I know that’s a good thing. So I’m not resisting it; in fact, I’m opening up to it. And it’s certainly opening up to me.

We’re in a spiritual age. Looking back through history, these ages come in cycles. This is the next one. Go into any bookstore. Books for seekers abound. Christian music is the one genre of music that has actually grown during this terribly trying time in the music industry. Oprah announces discussions with Eckhart Tolle on line and millions show up to partake. Never before has content for seekers been more available.

I study my own religion, but I read voraciously Wayne Dyer, Yogananda, Ram Dass, Spalding’s Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East, Joseph Smith’s Book Of Mormon, The Gospel According to Jesus, Tolle’s A New Earth and on and on. I like to say, “I’m getting’ it any way I can.” Truth, that is.

One thing strikes me along this road. Why is it that so many people think they have a corner on truth? How preposterous to think that the Christians are right and everybody else is wrong – that the Sunnites are better than the Sheites. There’s gotta be truth to every religion – otherwise, why would people be drawn to it in the first place

I suggest it’s not religion that separates us, but language. “The words are different, so the philosophy’s gotta be different” is the mistake we humans make. And we Christians are some of the worst offenders. How arrogant to think that only Jesus got it right. Jesus did get it right, but he wasn’t alone. Confucius, Lao Tsu, Marianne Williamson, Mohammed, Billy Graham, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Mr. Tolle, Mary Baker Eddy – they all got it right on one level or another.

In Spalding’s Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East which I happen to be reading now, the great Masters recognize Jesus as “the greatest teacher”, “a true prophet”. He is revered, studied and taught right along with their own prophets and gurus.

Why are we so exclusive?

Ultimately, fear and ignorance. Fear of being wrong. And so we wall ourselves off in single-minded blindness to the truths available everywhere. This fear creates in us an ignorance of the great teachings of thousands of deep thinkers that have come before us and are right now among us. A great human mistake. No one has a corner on truth.

God makes truth available to all mankind in all languages. We’re all reaching for the same thing. All religions have found it on some level or another just as all religions have also confused it on one level or another. It’s a human thang.

The book I’m now reading says it very well. “Those associated with the churches must realize that the church but typifies the one thing, the Christ Consciousness in all mankind. If they realize this, where can the diversity lie but in the concept of man’s mortal mind?

See what this diversity has led to, the greatest wars, the intense hate engendered between nations and families and even individuals, and all because one church organization or another has thought that its creed or doctrine was better than that of another. Yet all in reality are the same for they all lead to the same place… The church organizations and those associated with them are coming closer each day and the time will come when they will be united as one. When all are as one, there will be no need of organization.”

“Yet the fault does not lie wholly with the church organizations. Few people have awakened to the realization of what life really holds for them. We find the greater majority drifting through life, dissatisfied, dazed, crushed, or uncertain. Each must learn to lay hold on life and begin to express from his own life center, with purposeful, definite action, the gifts that God has given him. Each must unfold his own life.”

Certainly one reason that the individual turns to a religion is for a meeting of the minds. Then, often, that religion separates itself from the rest of the world in its exclusivity. This is one place where we humans get lost instead of getting found. This is where the seeker gets complacent thinking that he has found the truth, when, in fact, he has only found a corner of it. The whole world of truth lies before us. Stay on the road. We’ll never find it by lingering on the corner.

Three Cups of Tea

Hold on to your Inspirational hats! I lost mine over Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin’s Inspirational classic, Three Cups of Tea, which I just finished reading. Published by Penguin Books, this little gem produces a guaranteed 10 inspired tears per chapter and gets you connected up to the world along the way. I won’t tell you the plot or what it’s about; suffice it to say, ‘Just read it!’

This man, Greg Mortenson, is as close to a modern day saint as they come and I’m a better man for the chance of getting to know him. He goes to the top of my donation list – if there was ever a charity where you could count on the giving getting to the right getter, baby, this is the one.

I’ve always known somewhere deep inside of me that giving is where it’s at when it comes to living this life. I made a decision a number of years ago that this is what I want to do through my music. This true story that I’ve just read puts giving on the highest visceral and demonstrative plane. Here is a man who epitomizes the word. I thought I was giving to the world in my own small way. This man’s life defines the word. He has reshaped my thinking.

This book is a mountain of Inspiration.

Visit Greg’s site about his organization, Central Asia Institute.

Instructions for Life-From The Dalai Lama

I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E
from the Dalai Lama

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rs:
- Respect for self
- Respect for others and
- Responsibility for all your actions

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Watchfire Music Inspirational Radio

Watchfire Music signs a deal with uVuMobile, a telecommunications company with 12 million subscribers, to provide content for two radio stations – WFM Heart Beat Radio, an up-tempo Inspirational radio station and WFM Quiet Soul Radio, a laid back and more contemplative format. Both stations will play Watchfire Music artist’s material 24/7 to subscriber’s cell phones.

For more information, please click on the blog entry's title and be redirected to our website.

I Am A Seeker

The short and incomplete history of a seeker

I am a seeker. “What do you seek?” you may ask. Perhaps first let’s get on the same page with what it means to seek. Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary says, to ‘seek’ is, “to search, to pursue, to explore, to try to learn or discover.”

What do I seek? I seek truth. Again, our dictionary says that truth is “the real or true state of things.” So by definition a seeker is an ‘explorer’ of the ‘real or true state of things’.

Many people seek through their religion. I do too, but I’ve learned in life to grab it any way I can from any place it comes – as long as at its center there is truth.

When asked how he could possibly break through and smash the traditions of music with his historic and monumental work The Rite Of Spring, Igor Stravinsky said that in order to break the barriers of music, one has to first have studied and know all of music to begin with.

And so, as a seeker of truth in music, I listen to the likes of Bach, Mozart, Tshaikovsky, Copeland, Gershwin, Lennon and McCartney, Dylan, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Stravinsky among many others. As a seeker of truth in life, I listen to the Bible, Confucious, The Koran, The Dead Sea Scrolls, Krishnamurti, The I Ching, and Lao Tsu.

As a child I learned about the truth through the Bible and the amazing writings of Mary Baker Eddy – Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and her Prose Works. These books and truths therein became my center and foundation, though not the circumference of my thought.

In the 1960s, as a young man, like many others of my generation, I experimented with drugs. I do not advocate this today for many reasons, but back then I pursued a deeper sense of reality through a careful and scientific experimentation of the drug, LSD.

This drug opened my mind like no other experience and taught me first hand that there was so much more to life than meets the five physical senses. The experiences set me on a determined life course to learn more about the unreality of matter, this illusion in which we live, and my relationship with a God whose definition seems to grow and change almost daily in its magnitude.

This naturally led me to Harvard professor Richard Alpert aka Baba Ram Dass who wrote a weirdly monumental book that I have read and re-read many times trying to absorb its truths, Be Here Now.

From Ram Dass I branched out to Rajneesh and read all his teachings in book form. The Mustard Seed, a study of the teachings of Jesus from the point of view of an Eastern guru, was pure enlightenment.

My year as a Hindu, or rather I should say in the daily study of that gorgeous structure of thought, broke my Christian barriers down and opened up a world of truths from the perspectives of different languages and cultures.

My readings and life study of the Dhammapada, the words of Guatama Buddha, taught me of the immaculate wisdom of this profound man and most importantly solidified in me the fact that we Christians did not have a corner on truth. I went through the EST experience with Werner Erhardt and learned not to blame others for what we ourselves choose in life.

My two mentors in life, though not necessarily spiritual teachers per se, also taught me incredible truths about this mortal experience. First, there was a great high school teacher and coach, Jack Eyerly, who taught me that I could truly accomplish about anything I chose to truly go after.

Secondly, there was Sanford Meisner, the great acting teacher, who taught me the science of being an artist. Though I studied acting with him for four years, he taught me unbeknownst to both of us at the time, more about composing music than any other teacher in my life because he taught me the workings of my inner emotional being. This understanding has been the foundation for my work as a composer for many years.

My middle years in life were spent in the mind-boggling trials and joys of fatherhood and the learning of my musical craft. As a provider, student and career builder, I must admit slipping off the seekers path and, in fact, settling for life as it came and oft times scrambling to keep up.

But as my much beloved son moved steadily away from under my tutelage, I found the time and the impulse to get back on that seeker’s path. I found myself fascinated with the recent discoveries of quantum physics and laughed that our world’s quantum physicists were ‘discovering’ what Mary Baker Eddy had ‘discovered’ almost 150 years ago in her book Science And Health and countless Eastern mystics had ‘discovered’ over the centuries — and of course what Jesus illuminated in his healings, his walk on the water and other defiance of material laws, including his raising of the dead.

And yet the study of quantum physics only further concretized my understanding of the unreality of matter and the interconnectivity of all being and the fact that “God is All-in-all”.

Though I have never struggled with alcoholism, a friend turned me on to the life-saving writings of the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the solid truths of his life guide.

I’ve been enlightened by the television talks of Wayne Dyer and several of his wonderful books, Inspiration and The Power of Intention, and that led me to my now absorption with the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle.

B.O. (Before Oprah) I read and studied The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle four or five times over the course of a year (I call it the sequel to Ram Dass’ Be Here Now) and that led me to A New Earth which, for me, has been my latest explosion of brain synapses in the discovery of truth.

What’s next? I can’t wait! Whoever’s out there figuring it all out, I’m grateful to you for clearing the path.

When we talk about Watchfire Music, our trans-denominational Inspirational music company, my partner, Jim Birch and I like to say, “Truth is truth.” We intend that to mean that no one person or organization has a corner on truth.

Truth can be found in all inspired works. And so we serve all religions and all walks of spiritual thought.

I don’t think God, in its infinite wisdom, picks out a few privileged people to own truth. I believe truth is available to all who seek, to all who quest to part the curtain and peer into the world and worlds beyond.

This act of exposing the true state of reality in the universe both spiritual and material, the true nature and largess of God and man’s relationship to God, and my own personal place in all this is fascinating to me. Often illusive, it is something, nevertheless, that I consider every day. I believe that it is the answer to the perpetual question, “Why are we here?” I personally feel that we are here to seek the truth of our existence.

And so I am a seeker.

When Will They Ever Learn?

We keep reading reports of the demise of the Recording Industry as we knew it. Frankly, I think we’re all better off. Judging from the past we’re in better hands with the new guard – those that are starting with a fresh new approach based upon the realities of the present day.

A Short 25 Year History of the Record Business in Headlines

1980s – 25 years ago
Major Labels (Sony-BMG, EMI, Warner, Universal) Cut Back Jazz Record Divisions
Majors Cut Back Adult Contemporary – say, “Only Pre-Teens and Teenagers Buy Music Anymore.

1990s – 10-15 years ago
Music Industry Focuses Mainly On Teens and Pre-teens
Many Music Giants Can’t Get a Record Deal Anymore – Too Old

2000 - Turn of the Century
Through Napster, Teenagers Rob Music Industry Blind
“This Ain’t Stealing, The Music’s Free!”
Teenagers all across America
Record Business Tanks
U.S. Government Shuts Down Napster

2006
2% of All Music Sold as Digital Downloads Off the Web
Majors Ignore Digital Download Trend
File Sharing Continues to Tank Music Business
HMV, Tower Records, Sam Goody Shut Their Doors

2007
20% of All Music Sold as Digital Downloads Off the Web
Majors Sit and Twiddle Their Thumbs While…
i-Tunes Sells Its First Billion Digital Downloads
Majors Continue To Ignore Power of the Web
No Record Stores In the Top 10 Music Retail Outlets
Walmart Leads the Way

2008
i-Tunes #1 Seller of Records on the Planet
Passes Walmart as Top Retail Outlet
Majors Begin to Stir from 25 Year Lethargy
3 of 4 Major Labels Form Joint Venture with MySpace
Big Labels Considering Giving Away All Music for Free Will Make Money On Advertising

So is this the way to revitalize the record Industry? Judging by the gross mistakes of past history, probably not. Rather it’s simply a blatant attempt on the part of the major labels to raid what was ostensibly a home for independent artists. It sadly shows how desperate they are to maintain their declining market power.

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

Inspiration from Africa

“I think music is a universal language and the Julia’s “Alabado sea Dios” speaks to me very deeply. I don’t understand a word in Spanish, but the music is WOW! I received this CD when my country, Kenya, was undergoing a very unharmonious and unhappy time.

I believe her voice echoing over the seeming chaos has been, and continues to be a most healing effect to this city just as it has soothed and healed me. This particular CD is most profound. I would like to thank Julia again and again and again.

Thanks! Asante sana Julia!”
(signed) Joseph.

How can this be? A CD sung entirely in Spanish finds its way to Kenya, Africa and moves and inspires this gentle man, Joseph, who speaks not a word of Spanish.

What is it about music that touches the heart, fires the imagination, brings us closer to God, reconnects us with our spiritual selves?

Custard The Dragon

Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was an American poet best known in his time as the country’s most loved producer of humorous poetry. I grew up hearing his name tossed around the house always with a chuckle of admiration.

“I think in terms of rhyme, and have since I was six years old,” he once stated. I believe him. Looking through his clever and often hilarious works, I found myself wondering what it might be like to spend a day inside this man’s mind.

If called by a panther / Don’t anther
or…
The Lord in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.

This is his ode to the llama:

The one-L lama, he’s a priest
The two-L llama, he’s a beast
And I would bet a silk pyjama
There isn’t any three-L llama

Similarly, in Reflections on Ice-Breaking he wrote:

Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

He also commented:

I often wonder which is mine:
Tolerance, or a rubber spine?

Also:

People who work sitting down get paid more
than people who work standing up.

For his children he wrote a poem that has become a Children’s Classic for nearly 40 years – Custard The Dragon. I’ve had the great fortune to spend the last six weeks with the late Mr. Nash coursing through my head while producing a delightful (and most smartly composed) musical rendition of this wondrous tale.

Composed for full orchestra by NY composer, Brad Ross, and sung radiantly by our own Julia Wade, Custard The Dragon, a 7 minute musical romp through the imagination of Ogden Nash, is a Christmas gift for the whole family.

Don’t let your children grow up without experiencing this classic tale.

Belinda lived in a little white house,
With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,
And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,
And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

To learn more about 'Custard the Dragon,' or to listen to the album, click on the blog entry title and be redirected to our website.

Cy Young's 'Aesop's Fables for the 21st Century'

Talk about Insights! Now here’s a guy who was the King of Insights. No, I’m not talking about Cy Young, (though he certainly has had his share) I’m talking about his predecessor, Aesop.

Wikipedia tells us, “Aesop (620-560 BC), a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece, wrote Aesop’s Fables, a blanket term for collections of brief fables, usually involving anthropomorphic animals. His fables are some of the most well known in the world. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children” (and many adults who need moral refresher courses) “today. Many stories included in Aesop’s Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom “sour grapes” was derived), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, are well-known throughout the world.”

Interesting how the folks back in 500 BC struggled with many of the same moral problems as we do today. I could not have raised my own son without The Boy Who Cried Wolf. It was a philosophical staple in our home and it got so that all I would have to say was, “The Boy Who” and my son would roll his eyes and finish with, “Cried Wolf”. The tale’s moral was so clear that it was one of the few inarguable lessons of his childhood.

These humble incidents taught and still teach great truths and do so in Biblical proportion. A race between a turtle and a rabbit becomes a life lesson that is considered by us and governs us over and over. Now if this ain’t inspirational, I don’t know what is.

So when Cy Young first approached me with his 21st Century musicalized version of Aesop’s Fables, I gladly put it on top of the stack. On top of it all was the fact that Cy’s treatment was truly funny, child hip and immanently singable.

If you have children, or if you know children, you will be doing them a great disservice if you don’t immediately rush out and buy Cy Young’s most charming musical on CD. In fact, you don’t even have to “rush out”. You can just sit back and order it on line with a few easy clicks.

Do so now. Teach your children (or grandchildren) life’s great truths. Save the world.

To listen to Cy Young's album 'Aesop's Fables for the 21st Century' click on the blog entry's title where you will be redirected to our website.

Chieli Minucci

I’ve known Chieli (Key-elli) for longer than I can remember. I watched him grow from a young kid sub guitar player in one of my early Jenny Burton bands to simply one of the best in the world. Widely known as the leader of the Grammy-nominated contemporary jazz group Special EFX, which formed in 1982, Minucci & Special EFX have recorded a combined 23 CDs, 6 of those being solo releases – many on Dave Grusin’s GRP label.

I’ve worked with many guitar players in my life, but Chieli has always been my first call. My engineer for many years and I used to have a running understanding: “When Chieli arrives at the session and starts to take his guitar out of his case, that’s when you begin to run tape, that’s when you begin to record.” Because everything that came out of this guy’s axe was gold.

I always marveled at his ability to immediately understand music and where it was going. It got to the point in our sessions where I wouldn’t even write out a chord chart for him. Normally when a musician starts to work in the studio, the first thing you do is play down the song for him. You listen together, then discuss the style, point out the things you want to hear, go over the chart and then begin to work.

With Chieli, you simply start by playing the song through the first time in record. If you don’t, you’re gonna miss something great. And then in those first takes, I would just sit there in awe as he played great stuff, right in the pocket. But the real magical mystery was that he would play along with the song, never having heard it before with no chart – and it would be good! How did he know where it was going? How did he know what chords to play? Some great musicians just play and live so much music that they just intuit the stuff. Chieli Minucci is one of those special folks.

I’m very proud to be a small part of this man’s 24th and 25th album. He’s been such a huge part of my music for so many years, it’s time I gave something back.

Please visit www.watchfiremusic.com for more information on musician Chieli Minucci.

To listen to Minucci's newest album, click on the blog entry's title and you will be automatically redirected to our website.

Insight-Peter Link

I grew up a drummer. My dad gave me my first pair of sticks at the age of seven. He had been a professional drummer before the great depression changed the lives of millions. I had dreamed of a drum set since “don’t remember when”.

But the drum set did not come quickly. Dad said, “You play on this here window ledge for a year – till the paint wears out. If you stick with it, then we’ll see.” For a year, every night after supper, I marched up stairs to our HiFi room and played along with Artie Shaw, Glen Miller, The Dorsey Brothers – on Dad’s old 78s. Nobody had to tell me to go practice, ever. I was just driven to do it.

Dad taught me my rudiments, my double paradiddles, my triple ratamacues. I learned to play these complex beats so fast that they became rhythmic drum rolls. I played the paint off that old window ledge. At the end of the year there was a dent a quarter of an inch deep in the wood and a brand new Gretsch mother of pearl snare drum under the Christmas tree – the best that money could buy.

“This is great, Dad, but where’s the drum set?” Dad wisely answered, “You learn to play the snare drum this year and if you’re still interested next Christmas, there’ll be a matching bass drum under the tree.”

And so it went. Each Christmas there was another matching mother of pearl Gretsch drum, a floor tom, a side tom, a high hat cymbal, etc. under the tree – the best that money could buy.

I graduated from Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa to Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry and then on to The Beatles and the Beach Boys. In the seventh grade I began to play with the best college dance band in St. Louis. I was many different things as a child, but always a drummer. There was always that rock band, always the Pete Link drum solo – little kid wailing on the toms.

In college I picked up the guitar. I knew there needed to be more to music than just the beat. For me it was the same thing all over again. Nobody ever had to tell me to practice. I played till the pain from my fingers went up my arm. Folk music, Rock n’ Roll, Big Band, Jazz – there were no favorites. It was all just music.

In the seventies I put the guitar down. I finally found an instrument that could fulfill my musical imagination – the computer. It’s been my life ever since. (Ten years later I did pick up that guitar again and resume my love affair with my Martin D-35S.) But the computer could do it all, not at first, but as it grew in its incredible abilities, I grew along with it, staying up with the mad advance of technology and trying to hold on to the natural talent within.

Today, still, nobody has to tell me to go practice. I’m still driven. If a day goes by and I don’t get into my studio, I feel robbed, I get ornery, I’m hard to live with. I’m becoming a bit of a recluse. I feel like I’m finally getting this thing called music by the tail and I really don’t much care about anything else. Oh, I love people, I love my wife and my son and my friends, etc., but what I live for is that studio. I am the best of me and truly in the moment of now, the power of now, when I’m playing my Dual Quad 3.0 Intel 16GB Ram Mac. This is heaven on earth. This, for me, is the height of creative expression. Mine is a life in music.

This album, this CD, Ode To Joy, is simply the latest culmination of that life. I grew up a Pop musician, an eclectic popular music creator. A decade ago I met, fell in love with and married Julia Wade, an opera singer. Musically, I pulled her my way, but along the way, she pulled me hers. We spent three glorious years with season tickets to Carnegie Hall studying and having our minds blown by our favorite orchestra – The Philadelphia. This experience gave me something to hope for, something to dream.

This CD is the first iteration of that dream. I plan to continue down this road for the rest of my life. This is not an album of songs, rather, a series of impressions on the theme of joy. With each movement, I started with a loved melody from my life, stated it and then let the musings take it from there. Sometimes I even dropped the original theme after it had given me a start.

I mixed the musical styles of my life joyfully, not caring who I might offend, but just going with what I heard, drawing from the diverse musical styles of the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. My intention in the beginning was to create a purely instrumental album. That’s not the way it worked out. Along the way I kept finding things I wanted to say, and so I said them, or sang them, or had my friends sing them.

The experience of making this CD was one of the best of my life. I am ever grateful for the technological tools at my disposal – my computer and its constantly expanding software. I am ever grateful for the flip side, my talent, my connection with the Source of creativity, with the God given light of joy in my life. It is this light, this joy that I sing about, in all its ramifications. It is my Ode To Joy.

If you are interested in listening to Peter Link's "Ode To Joy" album, please click on the blog entry's title and be automatically redirected to his artist page at Watchfire Music:

Tom Tipton

Tom Tipton grew up in Washington D.C. As a child he would get up every morning before school and hustle over to the White House and shine the shoes of the visiting dignitaries outside the fence as they entered for meetings with the President. Later on in life he was invited to sing for three different Presidents there in that same hallowed building.

I just finished 5 intense days of recording with Tom here in NYC. Tom just celebrated his 75th birthday and is this man ever still going strong! He still does probably 200 dates a year and is best known for singing at Rev. Robert Schuler’s Crystal Cathedral as a regular – over 120 times. He’s traveled the world and in between takes he kept me totally entertained with the stories of his amazing life – including the one where as a child he sat on the knee of the great Mahalia Jackson.

We’re doing a “Best of Tom Tipton” CD that will cover the musical highlights of his life. I had the great opportunity yesterday to sit and listen to his 7 CDs made over the last 40 years – a treasure trove of music defining the history of the African American Negro Spiritual. These were and are songs that are the backbone of our country, the heart of America, irrespective of color – songs like Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, That Old Rugged Cross, Every Time I Feel The Spirit, What A Friend, How Great Thou Art. The list goes on and on.

We also recorded four new ones. Well, not new songs, but new recordings of classic songs. We did What A Wonderful World (the classic rendition recorded by Louis Armstrong a number of years ago). Move over Louis. This is a new version that will just make you glow and be glad to be alive.

We recorded a little known, but gorgeous Irish air called In A Cottage In Old Donagle that has one of those melodies that only the Irish can seem to come up with. An African American man singing an Irish air, you say? Made a believer out of me. Tom puts you in the green hills of Ireland on a moonlit night in the spring. He puts you there – goose bumps and all.

We did an international version of Sibelius’ Be Still My Soul that ought to stop war on earth for once and for all. This is a great classic melody that I’ve known all my life, but I’m sorry to say that I’d never stopped and investigated the words. I think my favorite is the second verse.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

I’ve saved my favorite till last. Goin’ Home is another great melody I’ve known all my life, but the words, oh Lord, the words… This song just kills me. And I ask here and now that this be sung by Tom Tipton at my memorial whenever that may be. This is a great classic rendition that will go down in recording history as one of those moments where singer meets song and a moment beyond human reach is created. If it sounds here like I’m bragging, I’m not. I’m simply proud to be a part of the greatness of this man and the greatness of this song. This is what a life in music is all about.

Studio work is tough – exacting, focused, concentrated and exhausting. This 75 year old man was like a racehorse – always ready to do another take, always connected to the moment, learning, teaching, laughing, making me weep and leading the way with his rich mellifluous voice and his deep understanding of this superb music. At the end of the five days he sat on my couch and spoke of his fatigue. We were both worn out. But that is not what I’ll remember about this experience. What I’ll remember is Tom singing his life in my studio and the rare opportunity to produce a piece of history.

To listen to Tom's newest album, please click on the blog entry's title and be automatically redirected to our website.

Fear or Confidence-A Question of Balance

In tough financial times like these the choice always seems to lie between fear and confidence. Simply put, we fear running out of money and lose confidence in the support of the financial systems around us. Then everybody stops spending and begins to hoard their money out of fear. Result: recession.

When times are good we’re confident that our supply will be there tomorrow and so we buy what we need – not necessarily what we want, but what we need. We live civilized, without fear, in a state of grateful ‘enough’.

There is, unfortunately, a third choice that has no reality, no practicality. It is the selfish choice of overspending – better known as debt.

America is clearly at the result of this third choice today. And it’s not just big business, government and Wall Street that is to blame. It is the gross misconception that we, as Americans, deserve to have more than we produce. It is an unbalance of reality, a confusion of the truth.

Several years ago my wife and I cancelled all of our credit cards. I was an abuser of this faulty system. Gratefully I woke up one day and saw the light, and today we buy what we can afford. If I can’t afford something I need, then I work harder for it. I save for it. I am a happier man for this practice. We now live relatively debt free, separating the needs from the wants, buying only what we can afford. Once we got used to living this way, we found ourselves much happier and freer.

This is the true American way. Hard work and good thinking is the foundation that America was built on. Today America staggers because it has lost touch with its foundational thinking. Most Americans live in debt, that is, live out of balance with reality.

Our times simply reflect our thinking as a nation. It is time to rebalance. It is time to live clean.

This does not mean that we should live in fear and hoard. That too is a mistake. We must return quickly to confidence, to balance.

Confidence in what? Government? Big business? Wall Street? Heavens no! Rather, confidence in the eternal fact that God supplies. God directs. God controls. “Ask and it shall be given” is the Bible’s imperative. But I don’t believe that this means that God goes on supplying those who greed when debt is the result of greed.

I believe that God supplies those who need. That means that those who produce, receive supply equal to the quality of their production. What goes out comes back in. I understand that this is the way it works. I understand it because I see the principle manifested this way in my life.

I cannot speak for the poor. I’ve been penniless, but never poor. Poverty is a trapped mindset, a depression of hope. We, as a people, are just as responsible for poverty as we are for greed and gluttony. They are the two ends of the spectrum of human thought.

What can we do about it? Pray for the extremes and live clean. Give to the poor when we can and actively protest those who greed, but first clean up the poverty and gluttony in our own lives. First balance our own individual lives. Regain confidence in the right source of supply, the open font and spend God’s gifts wisely.

A rebalancing at this time is good, but we all need to participate. We all need to do our part, however small, in the rebalancing of America. If everybody stopped and reconsidered the balance of supply in their lives and adjusted accordingly, I can’t imagine that this would not be once more a nation of financial confidence.

To Do The Unique

I’ve always loved the wisdom of this prescient moment by one of man’s great thinkers. Take a moment with it, study it, apply it to your own vocation. It’s da bomb.

“Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one, on that side all obstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. He inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival, for the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do something unique and no man has any other call.

By doing his work he makes the need felt which he can supply, and creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work he unfolds himself. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness”.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson