I'm a big fan of Beegie Adair, a wonderful jazz pianist and owned many of her recordings before we got to be friends through my website. Along with her talented trio she's made 20 or more cd albums honoring American composers like Gershwin, Porter, Kern, etc. I've been lucky to have some of my songs included in her output. If you aren't familiar with Bee Gee's remarkable work, I suggest that you rush out and buy at least one of her tasty albums. You'll be thrilled!

 

Happily, I celebrated my 95th birthday in April 2007 and hopefully, am inching towards that centennial. Unfortunately, the past couple years have had me incapacitated and in the hospital more weeks than I care to remember. So I prefer to look on the bright side.

I have been working on a new book titled: BETWEEN THE SHEETS, The Stories Behind My Songs and I'm hoping to have it finished and ready to go by this Christmas. They book will be folio size, the size of sheet music and I believe, quite attractive to the eye. Each chapter will be introduced with a photo of an original sheet music cover. In my day, when peo0ple bought sheet music, the covers were most artistic and colorful. These days with very little sheet music sold, the covers are usually plainly printer titles on white back grounds.

Each page in the book will carry lyrics of my songs from the beginning of my career through until now. And on each page there will be photos of artists and celebrities mentioned in the stories about my songs. Visually, this should make for interesting looking and reading. Altogether there are over seventy song lyrics, many that are familiar and some old ones that should bring back memories.

The final section of the book should appeal to all who play piano and will make this book a great Christmas or birthday gift for young and old. There will be twenty songs in sheet music form, from the oldies like ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL, IF I DIDN'T CARE and TENDERLY to the newest, like the song I recently wrote with Quincy Jones called THE COLOR BLUE REMAINS.

I hope to be able to offer this interesting book at a medium price.

 

For those who failed to get my previous book: THEY ALL SANG MY SONGS, I have a few copies left and offer signed copies, along with a CD of twenty-one songs that were hits recorded by their original singers, such as Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Shore, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney and more. Please write my website for information..

If you like the sound of big Broadway shows in their heyday, I suggest you buy roadway Decca's reissue of the original cast album of my musical I HAD A BALL.starring Karen Morrow, Richard Kiley with brilliant arrangements by Phil Lang.