Another year - already ??!! - it seems almost IMPOSSIBLE! However here we are in the opening days of 2006, the sixth year of the 21^st Century (and the twentieth year of Sting Records) - a "milestone", if ever there was one! This year we can celebrate two decades of Square Dance music production, which has - so far - resulted in the release of our catalogue of 175 Square Dance Records; over 200 pieces of music! (hoedown/patter records have two sides…).

One of the really good things about Christmas, is that it gives me a chance to review all that has happened in the previous twelve-month; especially with regard to Record Production and the company's performance.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• We finally hit our target of 24 releases in one year - although this is always our aim, it seemed that each year there would be a few circumstances that would conspire to stop us, forcing us to accept 22 or 23…

• All of our releases featured in the top 10 Best Sellers (okay, I am still waiting on the results for the December releases but I feel fairly confident - perhaps I shouldn't "tempt fate…"). Of the 22 records for which we have the results, you can see that we had 2 No.1s, 4 No.2s, 6 No.3s, 6 No.4s, 3 No.6s and 1 No.7; when you bear in mind that during 2005 there were a total of 207 new releases, I believe that our performance is outstanding.

• In addition we re-released 7 classic old tunes, which had been "unavailable" for some time and released 18 tunes in MP3 format as a part of our "progressive" release of music - previously available only in vinyl. Put that together with the fact that - from October - we have been making ALL new releases available in vinyl, CD or MP3 (MP3 - subject to licence) and our total output is indeed impressive!

• Following the transfer of ownership of Hanhurst's Tape And Record Service from Bill Heyman to Tom Dillander, much has happened. Tom, Pam and I met, in September, at the Palomino facility in Kentucky. We analysed the current state of affairs, regarding record production and distribution and implemented several revisions that will help cut costs and control the process much more "tightly"; Tom's situation - being able to press the records - allowed us to adopt some "cost-controls" that had not previously been available.

• The Sting Convention held in Paderborn, Germany, during October - featuring the majority of the Sting Label callers, attracted almost 150 squares of dancers and proved to be an excellent "public forum" for the company. We are all hoping for a similar degree of success, next year, in Denmark.

There are actually far too many milestones to mention that have occurred during this last year- it has been a terrific year for Sting and Snow Records. So what for the future? In simple terms a lot! Our plans are many and will include maintaining our high output as well as a number of other initiatives to help us to grow our market share; it may be foolish but I shan't be happy until record sales have doubled and we achieve the No.1 and No.2 spots in every Best Sellers listing!

Stay tuned to this web-site for news on these initiatives!

Here's the other "News":

BEST SELLER LISTING - NUMBER ONE!!!: Our November Releases took both the No.1 and No.2 spots on the combined Hanhurst's/Palomino listing on the dosado.com web-site; this is an excellent result of which we are extremely proud. The results were: No.1 for "Love Me For A Reason" and No.2 for "I Wish It Could Be Christmas, Everyday".

NEW RELEASES: Our new vinyl releases for January are: - the Bryan Adams song, "Summer Of '69" (vocal by Carsten Nielsen) and the Beatles tune, "Can't Buy Me Love" (vocal by Thorsten Hubmann).

Please Note: Thorsten Hubmann from Germany, is the newest Staff Member on Snow Records and you can read his Biography on the web-site.

Our January MP3 releases will be - "Daydream Believer" (vocal by Carsten Nielsen) and "Any Dream Will Do" (vocal by Maarten Weijers) - 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:
This month, the history sheets for December comprise:

• Christmas Day (Mary's Boy Child)
• Let Your Love Flow
• Barnacle Bill
• Hey Baby
• Dixieland Delight
• I Want To Be Back Home In Nashville
• I'll Do It All Over Again
• Summer Of '69
• Little Black Book
• Can't Buy Me Love

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. In Addition - the next four Audio Samples of our extensive library of Hoedown / Patter music are:

• 1:800 / 911 - SIR 504
  
• Thor / Oden - SIR 505
  
• Hazel-Mae / Sassafras - SIR 506
  
• Bobby Sox / Splodge - SIR 507
  

So if you want to hear how these top-selling recordings sound, just click on the musical note symbol . 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, apologies to any one who was looking forward to the next instalment of our report from last year's Nashville trip; I decided to write an annual review instead - I hope that you didn't mind and that you enjoyed the summary of success! I will publish the next instalment of Nashville 2005 in the February News-Letter. Have a great month, talk to you next month.

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