Unfortunately, due to my travels, I was not able to bring the following item to your attention any earlier. I am sure that you will have heard of this terrible tragedy and would like to register my personal support and that of Sting and Snow Records for the GSI initiative shown below. If you have not yet taken action to support this initiative and would wish to do so, you can use the information shown in the box below:

Hurricane Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast with devastating results. Nearly 1,000,000 people evacuated for the affected area. A vast number of these people have lost EVERYTHING they owned including homes, property, and livelihood.

The loss of life is estimated to be over 10,000. The economic impact of the region, the nation, and individuals is incalculable. Grand Square Inc. (GSI) has established a separate fund for donations for hurricane Katrina.

Donations may be mailed by regular mail or made through the GSI - Katrina web site (www.squaredancers4katrina.org) Donations mailed by regular mail should be clearly marked for "Square Dancers for Katrina Fund" and sent to:

I had many "good intentions". I had intended to return from North America and write and release an October up-date to the web-site; I had almost three days… Unfortunately, this proved to be insufficient time. After almost a month away from home, the mountain of mail ("snail-mail" and e-mail) proved to be a major time taker. Also, with the Sting Convention (in Paderborn, Germany) in it's final stages, I soon realised that there would be no October up-date - as such.

So here - for the first time since we "re-launched" the web-site - is a "two-month" News-Letter; with sincere apologies to anyone who was frustrated by the "non-appearance" of the actual October missive!

October marked my return to the U.K. after a SUPERB trip to Nashville. We now have another 19 new pieces of music available to release, three of which will have been released by the time that you read this News-Letter.

I was extremely fortunate to be joined, on this trip, by James Wyatt (the Associate Producer) and Neil Whiston. James has accompanied on two previous occasions, so this is his third expedition and he is always a great asset to the studio recording. Neil had visited the studios before, so this was a "return" trip. The real advantage of Neil and James's presence, was that they were able to record their vocals for each of the songs that they had chosen, consequently I was able to hand deliver the finished articles to Tom Dillander, ready for pressing and these two tunes have now been included in our October and November releases!

If you checkout the Latest and Future Releases pages, you will see some of the titles of the new releases and I will use this facility to keep you aware of other new releases as they near the release date. For further details of what to expect, please feel free to contact me or ask any of the Sting or Snow Callers that you may meet.

During my trip, I had a chance to meet with Tom and Pam Dillander, the new owners of Hanhurst's Tape And Record Service. They showed me their operation, in Kentucky (which is VERY impressive) and we discussed and agreed many important improvements to our business relationship. This should help us to continue our music making and should also bring some benefits to our customers.

The Sting Convention, in Paderborn Germany, was a tremendous success and I would like to extend my thanks to the Pader Jumpers, who convened and organised this event as well as to all the dancers who attended. We had close to 150 squares at the Convention which created a fantastic feeling of excitement and enjoyment which gave everyone that attended a slice of the "pie-of-happiness" that should be on offer at all Square Dance events.

Next year we shall be holding our convention in Denmark; please check out the Festivals link above for more details on this and other Sting and Snow events.

I have to be honest and say that I am still trying to "catch-up" with the pile of post that people sent while I was away and doing that - whilst trying to keep my regular schedule going - has slowed me down a little. Hopefully, by next month, I will be able to return to a more "even-keel" and tell you some more about the North American trip, perhaps with a few pictures etc.

BEST SELLER LISTING: Our August and September Releases all fared well in the combined Hanhurst's/Palomino listing on the dosado.com web-site. The results were: (August) No.2 for "Livin' On Love" and No.4 for "Please, Pease Me"; (September) No.2 for "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and No.4 for "Tjälfe / Nimrod".

SPECIAL NOTE: After meeting with Tom Dillander, I had a chance to check back on a few things and discovered that an error had been made with the Best Seller Listing which had been given for our May release "Hot Stuff" (vocal by Neil Whiston); this was shown as "unplaced" but should have been listed as a joint No.3. Tom has revised the listing on Hanhursts Tape And Record Service at dosado.com and has issued a note about the revised listing on the Tape Service release sheet

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.

This month - due to still playing "catch-up" after my U.S. trip, I have only had time to produce the history sheets for the October and November new releases; these are:

• Ain't No Angels
• Love Me For A Reason
• The Motown Song
• I Wish It Could Be Christmas, Everyday

I will start on the older titles again, next month - my apologies for the delay!

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.

SPECIAL NOTE: with effect from October, all of our new rleases will be provided in vinyl, MP3 and CD format. The MP3 and CD versions will offer additional keys (one-up and one-down). Our delayed releases of MP3s will continue for the near future and when this has finished we shall be releasing CD (and MP3) versions of all of our back catalogue in the three key format - stay tuned…

NEW RELEASES: Our new vinyl releases for October are: - the Tim McGraw song, "Ain't No Angels" (vocal by Neil Whiston) and the Rod Stewart tune, "The Motown Song" (vocal by Thorsten Geppert). Our November releases are: The Osmonds (or Boyzone) tune, "Love Me For A Reason" (vocal by James Wyatt) and the Roy Wood and Wizzard yuletide special, "I Wish It Could Be Christmas, Everyday" (vocal by Paul Bristow).

Our MP3 releases will be - October: "Kitt / Kaboodle" (a Double-Instrumental Hoedown/Patter) and "Every Breath You Take" (vocal by Paul Bristow) - November: "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 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.

Okay, I am off to finish unpacking my case… Have a great month, talk to you again - with news of our trip - on the December News-Letter.

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