July - Caesar's month (as you may recall)… Summer is here - warm weather, almost too warm for comfort. Here in the "un-air-conditioned" United Kingdom, we are slowly but surely "melting" as a consequence. So if you are reading this and if you care, please send an ice cube to an English man; before it's too late!

One question - that I am quite often asked - concerns older titles on Sting and Snow, those that are no longer available or "Out-Of-Print" as Hanhurst's Tape And Record Service like to put it. The philosophy behind the return or non-return of the older titles depends - almost entirely - upon two things: 1) "how l arge a demand there might be" and 2) "how much it would cost to "re-release" the record"; the answer to this second question, depends upon one question - "do the pressing plates still exist?"

Just prior to the present "heat-wave", here in the U.K., I received some really good news. As regular readers of this news-letter will be aware, Sting and Snow Records recently transferred their new vinyl production from United Record Pressings, in Nashville, to Tom Dillander at Palomino, in Kentucky. Part of this operation involved relocating all the various pressing plates, masters, labels etc., from United to Palomino; a fairly simple project but one that had a real "bounty" as a "side-effect", this was that we actually had a chance to list all the pressing plates that are still available for older tunes; United were always happy to re-press a tune but did not offer a comprehensive list of those that could be re-pressed.

The good news was the discovery of several sets of older plates that had long been thought to be "lost forever". Some of these are the plates for tunes that have been in demand for quite some time; top-sellers from quite a few years back (in some cases almost 20 years back!) that callers have been trying to obtain. This was a real "treasure-trove" of a discovery, almost like finding that hidden Pirate's chest!

This month we are starting a short run of "re-releases", based upon the discovery of these plates, you can check these out in the latest and future pages, as they become available. Hopefully, this will help some of the "younger" (in calling years) callers to obtain some much-sought-after music!

However, in spite of this bit of good fortune, there are still a few older tunes that we would like to re-release - but - the plates do not exist. We do have the master tapes, so the plates could be re-made - but - to cover the expense of doing this, we would have to sell, at least, 100 copies (which is quite a large number in this modern day)! So we shall be watching the sales of these other older tunes very carefully, in order to try and establish if we could justify a complete "Re-Release" - i.e. a full cost, re-make.

Here's where you could help; when you have a chance, check the Hanhurst "Out-Of-Print" listing for Sting and Snow - just click here LINK and scroll down the list to the Sting (SIR) and Snow (SNW) labels, there you can see the list of "unavailable" records from which you can select the tunes you would like to see "re-born"; let me know your choices - and - if there is enough interest, then we will make the old music "young" again - it's in your hands….

Now for the other news:

BEST SELLER LISTING:
Our May Releases took both the No.5 and No.7 spots on the combined Hanhurst's/Palomino listing on the dosado.com web-site. The results were: No.5 for "All You Need Is Love" No.7 for the double instrumental, hoedown/patter record "Ship-Shape / Bristol Fashion" - despite some "stiff" competition, we are still in the Top Ten - a great achievement!

NEW RELEASES:
Our new vinyl releases for July are: - the Irving Berlin song - made famous by Fred Astaire, (with Ginger Rogers, in the 1936 film "Follow The Fleet") "Face The Music And Dance" (vocal by Paul Bristow) and the Bobby Bare song "Streets Of Baltimore" (vocal by Tommy P Larsen)

SPECIAL RE-RELEASE:
As mentioned above, I am very pleased indeed to announce that we have located the original pressing plates for some of our oldest tunes and - as a consequence - this month, we are able to "re-release" our very first Patter Record - SIR 501 "Swedish Special / Happy Hoe"; click here (for side A) or here (for side B) to hear this tune.

This was recorded in 1988 and was originally released at the American National Convention, in Anaheim - during that year. It has always been a very popular record and there have been many requests to re-release it, something that that we thought was not possible… However, good fortune has "smiled" for us and here it is!

MP3/CD RELEASES:
Our July release are - "Catch A Falling Star" (vocal by Paul Bristow with Harmonies from Cherish Bristow) - PLEASE NOTE: this will feature two versions of the instrumental, one will have Cherish's harmonies included on it (as per the vinyl release), the other will have just the music. Also on MP3/CD for July will be "Lord Of The Dance" (vocal by James Wyatt) - visit the Listen To The Music link on the web-site, to hear and/or buy this on the Sting and Snow page at Hanhurst's Tape and Record Service.

INDIVIDUAL RECORD HISTORIES including ALL THE ADDITIONAL LYRICS:
As all the previously released records have now been covered, this month's history sheet features our newest singing call releases: Face The Music And Dance and Streets Of Baltimore

If you want to hear how these top-selling recordings sound, just click on the musical note symbol . Okay, I am writing this a little earlier than usual; I am off to Sweden to the Square Dance resort at Öland, where I will be calling for a week-or-so. So it's just possible that I may have "missed" something. If I did then I will catch up with the August news-letter. Right now I have to pack my case, pick my records and practice my A2 for a week of fun and friendship… "speak" with you next month!

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