This past weekend on both Friday, January 23rd and Saturday, January 24th, John Nugent and I went into the studio and with the help of our new Finale 2009, we were able to eliminate the need forever for a live piano player. Even though we dearly miss our friend Tim. But After the last hire, where the player really couldn't play that well, we decided we needed to go a new route. We recorded songs in preparation for the competition that we are aiming for on February 1st, less than a week before now. We recorded a lot of songs. the very best came from a singer that came from "The Touch A Life Show" His name is Perry Hayes. Perry may very well be today's Paul Robeson. He recorded our first song from "Edgar, Alan & Poe" called "Anything You Dare"-- which in my opinion came out the very best followed by the first song that we recorded from "The Shadow Of Freedom" This title tune tells of the anguish that Senator Thomas Ross went through back in 1868 when the radical Republicans (who really hated the South) were attempting to impeach Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson for simply carrying on the policies that Lincoln, himself had begun. Bill Lewis and Molly Summer recorded "Marvelous Tales" and Bill recorded "Is There Anything Left? from "The Revenge of Ichabod Crane". It was fun recording "Wannabee, Georgia" with a big group and "Surrender in Love" from "The Wild Swans" is an amazing song. We recorded also "We've Been Praying Our Little Beads Off" and "Incognito". Sometimes a song you don't really think will be sensational is and that was a song from "Revenge of Ichabod' sung once again by Perry Hayes called "When You're A Man With Money"-- it was brilliant. Perry normally charges folks a lot of money to hire him and so to receive his services free because he happens to believe in you very much is a nice touch. And so that little song "Touch A Life With Love" that I wrote way back in 1982 has now helped to raise a lot of money for homeless charities has now been the stepping stone to a wonderful talent that we could simply not afford to hire otherwise. We recorded about eighteen songs in the ten hour period between the two days. Thank you, God for your many blessings on this one. Thanks to Molly Summer, Bill Lewis, Perry Hayes, Nicholas Netzby, Tara Hadley and all the other singers. I had invited Terry Snyder to join us, but he simply was too busy this past weekend-- maybe next time. The voices of Terry Snyder and Tony Westbrook are dearly missed by me. They were simply incredible both individually and as a duo. Few people can sell a song like both of these incredible men. Today "Rent" by the late great Jonathan Larsen opened Off-Off Broadway and yesterday, the 25th, The Phantom Of The Opera" first decended upon the Majestic Theatre Stage in NYC and he still goes on after twenty-one years. Wow!