Who Buys Inspirational Music?

Or…
What Kind of people Are Inspirational Music Lovers and Consequently Buyers?

The potential customers of Inspirational music line up by the millions. First, let’s remember that Inspirational music is entirely trans-denominational – it attracts people from all religious denominations. And this attraction is world-wide.

Of course there is the Christian music market. The Christian book market is estimated to be worth more than $4 billion. The Christian music market has become an industry powerhouse, selling 43 million albums in the United States as long ago as 2004.

As a whole, the Christian video game industry is only expected to grow… and fast. In fact, estimates are that the video games market could be worth more than $55 billion by 2008 from the $22 billion reported in 2003. Wal-Mart, for one, is smart enough to know from selling about 550 Christian music titles and more than 1,200 Christian-themed books.

Beyond the Christian market lies a fascinating unclaimed market. We like to call that the Spiritual, But Not Religious market. These are people who may not go to church or, in fact sometimes do attend church sporadically.

They are seekers of spirituality who might go to their Methodist church, but also watch Wayne Dyer on television, have taken part in the amazing Oprah Winfrey/Eckardt Towle “A New Earth” internet explosion or might read Deepak Chopra. This market is 20% of America.

They are people who are not following a religious tradition per se, but are seeking beyond the boundaries of any one particular religion. They are people who think for themselves and are working out their sense of spirituality individually.

This market is on the rise at a time when people the world over need to turn to a higher power to find their way through the problems of this world. We clearly need an end to the financial crisis in the world. President Obama and other world leaders are doing their human best to balance the world’s economy, but the real answer here lies in this higher power.

At this time what the world needs now is a little (or a lot) of Inspiration. What lifts our lives daily? What brings the message of new hope? What better elixir than Inspirational music?

~ Peter Link

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For more inspiring music you can download
and information about Peter Link, please visit Watchfire Music.

The Sneeze

March 16th, 2009

Perhaps you’ve heard or read this story as it was passed around. It’s worth repeating.

They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into the already crowded auditorium. With their rich maroon gowns flowing and the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt.

Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away tears.

This class would NOT pray during the commencements — not by choice, but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it.

The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.

The speeches were nice, but they were routine… until the final speech received a standing ovation.

A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened. All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!

The student on stage simply looked at the audience and said, “God bless you, each and every one of you!” And he walked off stage.

The audience exploded into applause. This graduating class had found a unique way to invoke God’s blessing on their future with or without the court’s approval.

This is a true story; it happened at the University of Maryland.

Long Live New Music!

March 6th, 2009

In the old record business model it used to be that the life span of an artist’s new CD was about 3 months. After 3 months, if a song or CD did not “break out”, the record company would usually give up on the CD and stop the promotion. Then the CD would die. Often, because of the high costs of storage, the excess CDs would simply be destroyed.

It usually takes 6 months to a year to create a CD. Why then so short a life span?

Because the money it took to promote it nationally, even locally, through radio was so exorbitant. In those short 3 months a company could literally spend millions of dollars basically promoting one single off the CD. If it tanked, bye bye to all the work. And most of them did just that – they tanked. For a great variety of reasons – many of which had nothing to do with the worth of the music.

Today, it’s an entirely different story. Radio is fast slipping away as the communication medium for music. The internet is the new radio. No longer do artists have to manufacture tens of thousands of CDs in preparation for launch. Digital downloads took care of that. The high cost of storing all those jewel cased CDs does not exist anymore. Promotion on the internet relies more on smart creativity than the almighty buck.

So now good and even great music does not have to die and disappear. It can simply sit there in virtual space and wait to be discovered. And so in a very intriguing way, music always remains new – new to the listener who discovers it.

This is one of the high concepts behind Watchfire Music. It’s a trusted destination for people of all faiths and cultures to explore, experience and ultimately purchase new Inspirational music – no matter how old it is. It is always new. Fifty years from now it can still be sitting there on our site at virtually no cost to us waiting to be discovered.

A good reason to explore the site. It’s all new.

Insight-Nancy Morris

March 5th, 2009

Nancy Morris with Bobby Stanton

I’m sitting here in my easy chair, Mac in my lap, hot chocolate in my cup, drifting along to the Inspirational sounds of Nancy Morris’ new CD, My Favorite Hymns. This was one rough day. Lately it just seems like an inordinate number of close friends have been called to move on.

Perhaps she was needed elsewhere

Perhaps wherever elsewhere is

They’ve got their troubles too

Perhaps that mighty spirit

Just joined Mindy and John

Yeah that’s why they’re gone

They were needed elsewhere*

Perplexing, this life. Jill, Suzanne, Chucky, Don, — all great friends, gone, but not forgotten.

So I sit here and simply remember. But the phone rings, the sirens wail, the pressures of tomorrow loom and I just can’t wrap my mind around it all. So I put on some music — Nancy Morris’ new CD, My Favorite Hymns – to be specific. And the world goes away. The images of meaningful lives pass through my consciousness and the music takes me to the heart.

Hymns. Amazing, simple, evocative hymnsongs. What could be sweeter? At this moment, nothing. I don’t get a chance to slow down very often, but this moment, right here and now, I’m in my right place – because of the music.

Ahhhh, there’s my friend Bobby Stanton on guitar adding his magic – no words, just pure music and simple straightforward classic hymns. And Jill, Suzanne, Chucky and Don are here with me smiling and laughing and singin’ along.

Thank you, Nancy.

*From: Needed Elsewhere, Lyric by Peter Link

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.

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.

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?

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.

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