As I write this month's News-Letter, I am feeling especially proud of the efforts and achievements of the British Olympic team. In case you are not aware, we have enjoyed our most successful Olympics in 100 years, having received enough Gold, Silver and Bronze medals to place us very high in the table of medal winners. I admit to being entirely self-indulgent but hope that you will allow me a moment of "pride" (which - coincidentally - is the name that was chosen for our Lion mascot, in this years Olympics)! GB is looking forward to hosting the Olympics games in 2012 and (hopefully) increasing our medal total…

September will soon be "upon us" and with that I am once again "on my way to Nashville" to record some more "first class" super songs for you to enjoy. We constantly receive many great compliments from all of you about the quality of our music and the tune choices that we make and these are gratefully received; there is no bigger compliment for me than to walk around the halls, at some of the major Square Dance events and hear so many top callers using our music, to the enjoyment of the dancers!

I am very pleased indeed to be able to announce that Ralf Bender, from Germany, has joined the Staff of Snow records. Ralf recorded "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" as a "Special Guest Caller" and has a new release out this month - see the full list of new releases below. Ralf's next release, as a Staff Caller, will be in June 2009 and I am working on the music for that tune, next week, in Nashville!

I have recently received a few questions, concerning the type of music that we choose to release; the question asked was "why - if we need younger people - are so few new releases based on more recent songs? Most of our potential dancers will be in the age group 40 - 50: this would suggest that their fondest musical memories are from the 60s, 70s and 80s". To respond to this I feel obliged to point out that the majority of our music is from these eras, so we may already be meeting this requirement.

However, you may wish to know why we don't do more modern tunes (90s or 00s) and there is a reason for this, which is a little embarrassing, as it is essentially a financial one. The fact is that we make music for callers - callers are our customers. In an "ideal world", callers should buy music for their dancers - or (possibly) for the dancers that they wish to attract. Of course if callers really want to attract younger dancers, all that they need to do is tell us - we are always open to tune ideas; this year we are planning to record two tunes from the 00s - so we are taking a bit of a risk. However, if these tunes sell okay, we will be encouraged to experiment further.

The fact is that our primary motivation, in choosing tunes to record, is financial; we need to be able to sell enough to cover our costs and recover our investment. We make music for callers. If the callers want to attract younger dancers, they need to be more pro-active in telling us what they want so that we can respond. If there is a global desire to attract younger dancers then - perhaps - the dancer associations could co-ordinate with the caller associations and fund "experimental" projects; tunes with more modern rhythms and instrumentation.

The bottom line is - quite simply - that we need to talk! I shall be waiting to hear from you…

Now for the other news:

BEST SELLER LISTING (positions on the July 2008 listing)
No.9 - Not Ready To Make Nice - SIR 609
No.3 - Moonglow / Starshine - SNW 512

NEW RELEASES (September 2008):
Everybody Knows But You - SNW 1203 - vocal by: Ralf Bender
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - SIR 375 - Vocal by Paul & Cherish Bristow

NEW CD RELEASES - also available on MP3 & Vinyl (in most cases) / (September 2008):
Truck Driving Man - SNW 202 - Vocal by Anders Blom
Diana - SIR 902 - Vocal by Neil Whiston
Hispaniola / Roamin' Home - SIR 513 - Double Instrumental Patter

INDIVIDUAL RECORD HISTORIES including ALL THE ADDITIONAL LYRICS:
To find these, just click on the book symbol next to the title on the Catalogue, Future Releases or Latest Releases pages, this month's record histories features our newest singing call releases: Everybody Knows But You and Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad.

If you want to hear how these top-selling recordings sound, just click on the musical note symbol

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