BILL BLOG
Tuesday August 1, 2023
Tuesday and it’s the first day of August. One more really hot month in front of us. 90 for a hot high today.
YESTERDAY
Monday started with a Rick Lang writing appointment. Rick was on his computer in New Hampshire when he joined me to write an idea he had sent me this weekend that we turned into an up-tempo bluegrass tune.
Rick has been busy. He signed a publishing deal with the company I write for Billy Blue and his album to be titled “Blue Collar Gospel” is coming along nicely. There will be 11 songs on it, each song Rick helped write, all gospel-grass tunes. Rick and I will have two songs on this project, one with Jerry Salley singing the lead with the Oak Ridge Boys joining in with their stellar harmony. The second one of ours “Church Bells Ringing” will be recorded late October and then the album looks to be releases early next year.
Rick did a pretty cool thing and is having each song that makes this great album available in sheet music and he sent me a copy of the sheet music to “Church Bells Ringing”. Of all the songs I’ve written or helped write, I don’t remember seeing any sheet music on any of them. So it was a nice little souvenir to get by e-mail yesterday.
We’re not getting the horse before the cart but the first album Billy Blue did of Rick Lang songs got nominated for a Grammy. Fingers crossed that we should be lucky again like that for this album.
LAST NIGHT
My wife Kathy and I boarded the General Jackson Showboat along with our friends Matt Davenport & Victoria Venier as well as Lang Scott & Linda Davis. A date night! And a great evening.
The temperature actually cooled off a bit making it comfortable to hang out on the top deck for a while and listen to a great band that entertained before the main dinner show. Victoria and Matt’s company Matt Davenport Productions produces all the shows on the General Jackson Showboat. And before we went down the stairs into the main show room we were treated to a tour of Pilot House and met the Captain. What a view of the Cumberland River from up there!
And right before the main show started the boat cruised into downtown Nashville with all the city lights on providing a really cool photo opportunity.
If you’re coming to Nashville and looking for something to do outside of the Lower Broadway honky-tonks I highly recommend you sign up for the evening dinner cruise on the General Jackson. The cast was great and talented and the show was fun. Food was good. Thank you to Matt and Victoria for asking us to sail with them last night.
AUGUST DATES
Here’s what August looks like for me.
August 11 && 12… in Little Rock for Freedom Sings USA writing songs with veterans with a free show Saturday night with those Veterans at the Douglas MacArthur Arkansas Military Museum.
August 18 & 19…Gatlinburg Songwriters Festival with “Hits & Grins” where I’ll be playing with “Hits & Grins” and teaching a class.
August 26…Franklin, Tennessee with “Hits & Grins” at a house concert.
AND…pretty sure that I’ll be adding a date for New Orleans this January. Waiting to hear final word before I post that event and date in the calendar here on the website. Let the “Good Times Roll”.
HEALTH NOTES
A skin care doctor says three things are important for young skin. Sunscreen by far being the most important with a minimum SFP number of 30 or more. Then stuff with hyaluronic and retinoic acid. (I know…I had to look that up myself)
The CDC says leprosy could be endemic in central Florida. 81% of all Florida cases are there and that region also holds one fifth of all cases in the U.S.
The Biden administration has just opened a new office to study long COVID.
KEVIN COSTNER
My wife drew my attention to this interview years ago. In the interview he reminds all of us why we should not judge a person’s talent lightly. We assume sometimes a person, especially in the creative arts, just will never make it for whatever reason we make those kinds of assumptions. Every now and then we are dead wrong. Like Kevin Costner was in a BIG way once. Watch this interview. (Be advised there is very coarse language, so if that offends you keep moving through the rest of today’s blog). Amazing true story.
DOLLY
The publication Country Living listed 35 famous quotes from Dolly Parton. And she is a quote machine sometimes. I’m familiar with a bunch of these like one of my favorites from her, “People ask me how long it takes me to do my hair. I don’t know. I’m never there”.
But I’d not heard this one. “I tried every diet in the book, I tried some that weren’t in the book and I tried eating the book. It tasted better than all the diets”.
HOROSCOPES
Since it’s the first of a new month your latest horoscope is out. I don’t read mine ever. That’s because I use fortune cookies instead to predict my future. SO much more accurate and you get to eat something in the process. I like the one that read, “If you eat something and nobody sees you eat it, it has no calories.
HEADLINE OF THE DAY
“Woman Born Via Sperm Donor Discovers She Has 65 Siblings”. You know what that means right? Someone is the family is probably celebrating a birthday today.
TODAY
I had a writing appointment cancel out this evening so I have a day free. No complaints about that.
Have a great Tuesday!
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