December is upon us and with it starts the Christian Biblical season of "advent" - a countdown to Christmas! This is the season of goodwill and is that time of year when we try to get together with our friends and family and celebrate all things that are wonderful about being alive! So, on behalf of myself and all the good people at Sting and Snow Records, I would like to extend a very warm and sincere seasonal greeting to everyone reading this News-Letter; I hope that you have a great and most enjoyable time.

From the perspective of a Square Dance Record producer, it is the time of year when any Christmas tunes - recorded in years gone by - will (hopefully) see a few extra sales. Each year, I have tried to release a tune for the season (perhaps with this "perennial" thought in mind) and I hope that we have managed to offer you something that you can use and that you enjoy. Don't forget to check out our catalogue and our web-page at Hanhursts's Tape And Record Service to hear these tunes - as well as most of our others - and maybe buy a few (perhaps even as Christmas presents?)!

To continue with the tales from this years' expedition to Nashville…

Having arrived at the home of Country music and having settled into to our Days Inn accommodation, we began meticulous and carefully calculated preparations for the studio session ahead. So, having watched several hours of CMT (Country Music Television) and having eaten at such culinary palaces as "The Waffle House", we were beginning to "feel" the part…

The studio session was set to run over three days (the first Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in September) but - prior to that - we had arranged for our band-leader, Gregg Galbraith, to meet us at the Days Inn and "run through" the tunes that we intended to record. I had sent Gregg copies of the tunes, A Cappella versions (in Square Dance format) and instrumentations, well ahead of the session. Gregg had taken time to research each of the songs and write them out in the "Nashville Notation"; this is a system of writing music as numbers, which was developed by the Tennessee musicians, it is actually much more appropriate for our purposes as it is independent of the "Key" - if you decide to play the song in a different Key, the same "numbers" will apply.

The purpose of the Monday meeting was to make a final check upon each tune and to "fine-tune" certain aspects - or even revise or alter anything that needed to be changed. The main purpose of this session is to ensure that we did not "waste" any "studio time" and to help guarantee that we would achieve our targeted number of new recordings.

I took just over three hours to carry out this "check" and - by the time we were finished - we all had a common understanding of how each of the tunes should be recorded. Of course, we knew that the next day would be the "acid test" and that - no matter how well we planned - there would still need to be further revisions. Our hope was that we were as close to ready as we could ever be.

Okay I am going to have to finish with the story at this point - I have to go and buy some Christmas presents - but I will tell you more next month.

Here's the other "News":

BEST SELLER LISTING: Our October Releases maintained our excellent run of results in the combined Hanhurst's/Palomino listing on the dosado.com web-site. The results were: No.3 for "The Motown Song" and No.4 for "Ain't No Angels".

NEW RELEASES: Our new vinyl releases for December are: - the Garth Brooks song, "That Summer" (vocal by Paul Bristow) and the Billy Joel tune, "Uptown Girl" (vocal by Maarten Weijers).

Our December MP3 releases will be - "I Get A Kick Out Of You" (vocal by Søren Christensen) and "Merry Christmas, Everybody" (vocal by Paul Bristow) - visit the Listen To The Music link on the web-site, to hear this on the Sting and Snow page at Hanhurst's Tape and Record Service.

INDIVIDUAL RECORD HISTORIES including ALL THE ADDITIONAL LYRICS:
The histories contain details about each original song, including it's production and provide the extra lyrics - as featured on the called side. You can access these by "clicking" on the open-book picture , on the Catalogue, Latest Releases and Future Releases pages.

Don't forget - you can also listen to a short part of any track that has a musical note symbol .

Remember - the Record histories don't just include the lyrics, each one contains the story of the song itself, as well as comments about it's production. So for some -hopefully "useful" and "useable" information about each of our songs - this is the part of our web-site to visit.

This month, the history sheets for December comprise:

• Crocodile Rock
• Home On The Range
• Arms Of Mary
• That Summer
• Only Sixteen
• She's Not You
• Side By Side
• Uptown Girl
• Tennessee Waltz

In Addition - from this month, in response to your requests, we have started to provide Audio Samples of our extensive library of Hoedown / Patter music. So if you want to hear how these top-selling recordings sound, just click on the musical note symbol . The first four tunes to be featured are:

• Swedish Special / Happy Hoe - SIR 501
  
• B.J. / Piece of Cake - SIR 502
  
• Bubble & Squeak - SIR 503
  
• Flake / Snow - SNW 501
  

For details of the titles featured in previous months, check out the News-Letter and - if there are any that you would particularly like to see added just let us know.

THE FORUM: Finally, don't forget to visit the Forum and join in the discussions that are taking place on a variety of SD related topics. Do you have a "burning issue" that you would like to discuss? Do you have any comments about Sting and Snow music - or SD music in general? When you have a moment, take the time to "throw your hat into the ring"!

Okay, I am off to the shops now, to try and find something for my wife, for Christmas - what do you buy for the woman who has everything? Have a great month, talk to you again - with more news of our Nashville trip - on the December News-Letter.

Go Squareful! - Paul Bristow (Owner and Producer Sting and Snow Records)