bill crosby

An antelope who wants to get married, a manatee inventor and a llama who wants to act can only mean one thing: a new kid’s CD from me! I don’t know EXACTLY when it’ll be done but i can tell you this: it’s going to be FUN!

The usual cast of characters have recorded so far: Emmett Ientilucci (drums), Mark Horn (gtr), David Earl, Mitch Reily (sax), Jeff Rogers (gtr), Mark Easterling (gtr), Steve Holland (percussion), Francie Smith and Rae Hering on background vocals.

Filling in for Mike Bush on bass is the Philly man, Bobby King. It’s been a lot of work so far, and scheduling has not been easy, but soon, we shall unleash this music to the world!

This project has been co-produced with Rob Tew, keyboardist, guitarist, and audio engineer maniac. A man who wears many hats but is always in style (I just made that up, I think).

If you’ve seen my “pet snail” video you know my lady friend, Denice. she has been inspirational (and my family has been, as well) and because of her help, I was able to get Grammy nominated blues guitarist, Dave Perkins, and trombonist, Barry Green (from Larry Carlton’s band), to add their talents to my songs. Good people make me sound good!

Marin Miller also added her unique talent to a song that wasn’t even a duet until I heard her sing. I am psyched for everybody to hear this new music!

It’s that time of the year: too much to do and not enough hours to do it. I finally got a Christmas song and video together. With the help of many, and the most fun for me! You can download “Santa on the radio” at CDBaby and the video is now on YouTube.

We’re still trying to finish my new kid’s cd, but, I keep seeing molasses pass me by! I wish you all a happy holiday season!

So, the east coast tour of Virginia(um, Gloucester,really) has come and gone.

The  x99.1 morning show was about as much  fun you could have without

bandaids and new pants ! Artists  Nate Sparks and Judy Pancoast  chimed in

with music,stories, and laughter .  Hosts Neal and Karl are a rare, somewhat

extinct breed:  radio personalities.  The show had  live entertainment, much

humor, and free donuts!  For  the “christmas in july” concert friday night ,we

played to  a small, but merry audience. we had taken” timbuk one” to get to

the show so we were on time… (ask Judy about that)

Saturday was spent swimming,antiquing( a player banjo?) and Jay’s home

became nap central.  I so appreciated Jay   and his family’s hospitality !

If you have a pool that overlooks a river, you have done well in life.

( why he would bother  managing artists, i do not know:)

Sunday was  a blazing hot day, but, we had a show to do and  we brought it.

Bena country store was a nice cozy venue(that’s what everybody says when

not too many people show up), great people, and conveniently located about a

mile from Jay’s. The owner’s young son, George  became my show

sidekick,dancing like a wasp attack for most of my songs. ah, kids..

Friends of  Dee’s came  from Norfolk to see the show. cool people.Those

VanHook’s have great taste in music   hahaAnnie’s young son,Sam was

listening to the ‘peanut butter fish’ cd

(which they had just gotten at the gig at Bena country store..but available

on line at billcrosbymusic.com

and he said,

“He is a happiness bringer.”

” Who is ? ” his mom replied.

” bill crosby. He made us all just fall in love with him…”

who could ask for a better endorsement ?

bill crosby : happiness bringer,

that has a nice ring to it….

My friend Majed told me if he ever did anything for a charity, he’d donate to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. I asked him where that was and he said “In Memphis.” I had no idea! Here I am, a kid’s songwriter, a mere 3 1/2 hours away. I emailed them immediately and worked with a wonderful woman named Jessica to set up a gig. In my life, I never would have dreamed that I would play my music in Memphis! I told my bassist and drummer that I was going and they jumped at the chance to play! Very cool. On that Tuesday in May, we loaded up the van and headed west. The drive from Nashville to Memphis is called Music Highway because if you don’t have music, you’ll be bored to tears! There’s nothing to look at but trees, and then, halfway, there’s Jackson. We arrived an hour early (thankfully) and was greeted at the door by a nice lady named Penny who got on the pa system and told all the kids that we were there to entertain them, just like we were big rock stars! (heck, we barely twinkle) She mistakenly called drummer Johnny Rampino “pampino”. I giggled. We met Michaela, who was our helper /guide (actually, she was there to make sure we didn’t play too loud). We got set up in a food court/ice cream parlor area where there were a lot of people walking through. This hospital has 4,000 people working there! They are truly angels and saints! We played our usual goofy songs,shaky in some parts, because Johnny had forgotten his hi hat cymbals. A few people had told me: “If you make one kid happy then, it’s worth going to perform”. I’m elated to say we saw quite a few smiles and a couple of kids even started dancing. It doesn’t get any better than that. A lot of parents and nurses came up and thanked us. We thanked them right back. As we were leaving, Penny told us that the young girl sitting right in front had been having a rough time lately .She said it was good to see her and her mom enjoying the show. It was truly an honor to be able to entertain those kids and their families. So, we hit the highway back to Nashville. About five miles from St Jude’s we saw another children’s hospital! It must be like drug stores. As soon as a pharmacy is built on one corner, another one appears across the street. I hadn’t ridden with Johnny very much, but if someone does something reckless on the road, he shouts “Where’s my pistol?!” That made the drive home very interesting…

My friend keith and I were working on getting some of my songs to Disney/Pixar, because I want to be a cartoon someday. The woman he was talking to in Virginia worked for Radio Disney. She was thrilled to find out I was writing kid’s music and had some great suggestions on how to get my songs out there into the world. She also suggested writing songs for the National Ad council. She said “He could write songs to help them, something for kids with asthma, like ‘Where’s my inhaler?’.”

When I heard about this from Keith I thought to myself “That is one of the most hilariously unwrite-able song titles I’ve ever heard.”

But sure enough, a few days later Keith and I were still giggling about it and I said, “What would even rhyme with that? Lung failure?“

I told Keith I had to hang up the phone right then, because inspiration had kicked me in the head. I was actually going to sit down and write the unwrite-able song. As it spilled out from a smile to the guitar onto the page, I realized I could probably write a song about anything!

The fun thing for me was: once I got the demo done with guitar, bass, and horns, I sent it to Emmett, Drummer Extraordinaire, and he played drums to it on his home recording studio and emailed it back. It sounds like he was right there in the studio with us, but he was actually playing in upstate New York months later! The wonders of modern technology…

Enjoy this bonus track, Where’s My Inhaler?