Back then, LPs were large enough – approximately 12”x12” – so that the cardboard cover they came in could have all kinds of information about the music and the artist.  I remember to this day literally paragraphs of my Ellington At Newport (Jazz Festival) that I played and read until the grooves wore out.

Back then they even gave a Grammy for “Best Liner Notes” each year.

Then the medium began to shrink – first to the size of a CD and now to nothing more than a digital download of the cover and the names of the songs if you’re lucky.  Lost along the way were other pictures besides the cover, lyrics and especially my beloved liner notes.

Several years back when I started producing CDs regularly I tried to keep the time-honored traditions by releasing CDs with 8 to 24 page booklet inserts.  Inspirational music depends a lot on its lyrical content and I always felt it necessary to include those lyrics and especially give credit to all the musicians, singers, designers, etc. who worked to complete the project.  But the cost of the booklet became prohibitive.

Today a 4 panel booklet CD will cost $1.14 per unit from the manufacturer if I buy at least 1000.  Take that booklet to 18-24 pages and the cost soars to over $3.00 per unit.  There go the profits.

So Watchfire Music and a few other artists turned to the Digi-Book.  What is a Digi-Book?  “A Digi-Book is an electronic version of an album’s liner notes and vital information.  This downloadable digital booklet contains photos, lyrics, and notes written by the artists and producers of the album as well as all sorts of information pertinent to the experience.”

Better yet, go look for yourself!  WFM’s latest is a gorgeous journey of nearly 40 full screen pages of pictures, lyrics, quotes, artist insights and credit material with bios that is visually stunning and completely informative regarding the experience of making the CD and other vital information.

Designed by WFM’s leading designer, Sara Gray, who also did Julia Wade’s Every Day gem of a booklet, this digital package looks fabulous on your computer screen and can actually be printed as well.  If you print, we suggest using Glossy Photo Paper for a beautiful treasured keepsake of the album experience.

But you don’t have to print it to enjoy it.  Backlit from your computer screen, it’s a colorful experience that is sure to delight anyone who is into the music on the album.

Best of all, it’s FREE!  You can download it and send it to a friend in just a click or two.

We even created a new section of the site just for Digi-Books!  Just go to the far right of the Nav Bar and click on Digi-Books.

I’m not going to write much more about it because that would be redundant to the experience, so take a moment or two right now to follow this link and experience it for yourself.

Oh yes, while you’re at it, Buy The Goin’ Home CD!  The whole package is worth far more than the price of admission.  That’s a promise.

We did a soft release last Thanksgiving Day and already, in one week, Goin’ Home is our best selling CD of the year.  I can’t tell you how excited we all are here at WFM at the promise that this CD and Digi-Book holds for the coming months.  We thank so many of you, literally hundreds of people who have already been so supportive of this project.

The package is finished. It’s available now.  We promised it for Christmas and delivered.  It’s a wondrous Christmas gift idea and with WFM’s Send To A Friend capability, it’s the easiest of shopping ventures – all from your easy chair in front of your computer.  Give the gift of music and a perspicacious look at the road to eternal life.

Don’t forget the Digi-Book!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• The Changing Scene
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• My Body

Previous to this month I had only ever written one Christmas song – a song recorded by the Jenny Burton Experience called Christmas In My Soul.  They say, in the music business, that the month of June is the month to write and begin one’s Christmas album, the preparation of such to be around 5-6 months.  Who can write Christmas songs in June?  What a silly notion.

This year the Missus has come up short in her search for the perfect Christmas song for her Christmas Day performance in church.  She had decided to employ a terrific Boston harpist and together with her organist, Bryan Ashley, keep it small and delicate in accordance with the spiritual implications of the morning.  Last year she used a brass quintet plus the church four manual pipe organ and blew the roof off, so this year she wanted to do something completely different.

But no song came to mind to fit the criteria.

While watching her go through her turmoil, I happened to mention one day several weeks ago that perhaps I could write one for her.  This was said in a fit of compassion for her plight while I was in the middle of the mad dash of the final throes of my own CD, Goin’ Home.

Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, she grabbed at the offer and signed me up.  At first I thought, “Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?”  Where would I ever find the time to do this?

Then she came up with the notion that not only should I write it and arrange it for harp and keyboard, but that we should also record it and sell it for Christmas.  Then she came up with the idea that we should also do the sheet music for it and sell that too and let others use it in their churches for their Christmas services as well.  Then she came up with the idea that as long as we were going to do all that, she may as well use the song for her musical Christmas Presence lecture that she does around the country with lecturer, Chet Manchester.  This only moved the deadline for all this up by about 2 ½ weeks!  “Egads,” thought I.  “What have I done?”

So I did it.  In the next 3 days Julia will record the lead vocal to the orchestrated track, Craig Wagner, the designer, will design all the packaging, I’ll mix the song, the WFM staff will manufacture about a hundred singles to start with and by Thursday we’ll be selling this song that will receive it’s first performance in St. Louis on this coming Sunday.  Whew!

Will we make it?  With God’s help, we shall.

It’s a new world.  Things like this can be accomplished in a matter of weeks, a matter of days now.  The power of computers – the power of Mind.

The writing was fun and accomplished in a matter of 48 hours.  Once that was done, I knew we’d be OK.  The rest was just a matter of getting’ it done.

Julia directed me to the Bible for my text and chose the tried and true – think Handel.

“And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace
Yes his name shall be called Wonderful”

But I also wanted to shed some new light on the subject – not just rehash George Fredric.  Julia suggested that I combine the Bible text with some of the text of Mary Baker Eddy and her thoughts on the life of Jesus.  Julia and her big ideas!  Using text (non-lyrics) always makes good songwriting very difficult in that text is not metered and has a way of not particularly sounding very musical much less poetic.  On top of that the text of Mary Baker Eddy cannot be changed by even the alteration of a comma.

However the text she gave me was poetic to a certain extent so I thought I’d give it a go.  I had a great deal more content than I needed to begin with.  Julia can have her long-winded moments, so I had to do some clever editing.  Always easier to cut than to add.  While fooling around with several lyrical directions the line struck me like a lightening bolt — “And his name shall be called Wonderful,”

“What a great idea,” thought I.  Call the song Wonderful!

And so I did.

I was on my way…

Here is the finished lyric.  In another magical musical week you’ll be able to hear, sing, play, perform, buy and listen to the whole thing through the wonderful world of MIDI, LOGIC, the INTERNET and God’s gift of inspiration.

Hot off the presses!

Wonderful

Text by Mary Baker Eddy
Lyrics adapted from the Book of John
Music by Peter Link

The wakeful shepherd beholds
The first faint morning beams,
Ere cometh the full radiance
Of a risen day.

So shone the pale star
To the prophet-shepherds;
Yet it traversed the night, and came
Where, in cradled obscurity, lay
The Bethlehem babe,
And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Wonderful

The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a very great light:
For unto us a child is born,
And a son is given:
And the government shall be upon his shoulder:

And his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace
Yes his name shall be called Wonderful

Now the Son of man is glorified,
Yes and God is glorified in him.
Verily, he says unto you,
“He that believeth on me,
The works that I do shall he do also;
And greater works than these shall he do;

If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father,
And he shall give you another Comforter”

The prophet of today
Beholds in the mental horizon
The signs of these times,
The reappearance of the Christianity
Which heals the sick
And destroys error,
And no other sign shall be given.

When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth,
The prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled:
Saying “Unto us a child is born, . . .”
“Unto us a child is born, . . .”

And his name shall be called Wonderful.”
Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace
Yes his name shall be called Wonderful
Wonderful
Yes he is wonderful
Wonderful!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• The Decline of Lyrical Craftsmanship – Part 1
• Nothing
• You Must Remember This!
• My Body

During this time we invented a company, Watchfire Music, to sell our product and to be the machinery behind all of our musical efforts.  It has been just that for us, and so we continue to try to make it all work during these historically toughest of times.

My approach has been to try new things to see if they would work, to stay creative and turn out good and great product and to sometimes pause and simply watch where the world, and especially our industry, is going next.

If we were a rich organization, if there were an endless financial stream of support, we could be leaders in the industry – we certainly know and understand the technology and keep up to date on the evolution of music and the Internet – but we don’t have that deep well of cash.

Many companies have tried to lead and gone down trying.  We have survived because we have stayed small and nimble, watching for the technology to evolve to a point where the industry would settle into a music delivery system that would make sense during this collapse and ever-changing time.

To a certain extent, it has worked.  We’ve not spent millions of investor money.  We have a powerful and well-developed ecommerce website that is pretty automated, easy to manage and graceful to change.  And we have gone from a start-up company to more than a breakeven company in these 5 years of both success and failure.

Have we failed?  You bet.  I could name 20 great ideas that have come and gone and now only exist in the depths of one of my hard drives.  Have we had our share of successes?  Another “You bet”.  After all, we’re still here.

Will we change things again?  A third YOU BET.

It seems now that with the success of Spotify and Pandora, music is now a streaming medium.  For the average Joe with their smart phones and iPods and iPads and whatever new fandangled thing is just over the next horizon, music is available to be searched and found, listened to at any time and collected in organized fashion – all for free.

This puts a serious dent in the ability to maintain a company that sells recorded music.  Oh yes, I know, there are still people who want to actually own their favorite music, still people who want to play their music on their CD players and hear the music at its quality best, but unfortunately they are a rapidly dwindling few.

Case in point:  We have one lovely man and wife set of “customers” who absolutely love WFM Radio and are often found writing us and suggesting new programming, updating of our channels and new ideas for better radio.  They are devoted listeners to our free radio.  They have never bought a single download.  They’re happy with what we give them, but do not buy.

I look at all this and wonder…

Where do we go from here?

Over the next months we will continue to watch, listen, work and pray.

This Christmas I have a new CD, Goin’ Home, coming out that is presently the hope of our company.  We’re going to do new things in new ways that we’ve never done before.  We’re going to try to do everything in our power and imagination to reach people with this life-changing and life-supporting idea.  We’re going to spend more money than ever before on promotion and packaging and quality.

My favorite quote from music blogger Bob Lefsetz sits before me here on my desk.  “But can you build something so good people will be drawn to you?” It’s all I think about these days.  I will tell you this:

We’re gonna give it a shot.

Even More Inspiration

• Spiritual Scientist
• By The Numbers?
• Phoenix Rising
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• Light At The End Of The Tunnel
• Even Now

Perhaps a song called Faith, perhaps Who Will Heal The World, perhaps Julia’s Upon The Mountain.  I’d play my ‘hood, Hell’s Kitchen, awake and stand on my terrace overlooking Lower Manhattan, the Village, Wall Street and the Statue Of Liberty and holler, “Wake up, New York!  We’re alive!

Last night I looked out on a new building springing up down where the Twin Towers once stood.  It was lit majestically in red, white and blue.  It stands where once, not so long ago, there was nothing but a hole in the ground.  Hope re-kindled.

This morning the sun rises on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I wasn’t in NYC ten years ago this morning.  At first I counted it a blessing.  I was in my other home in Colorado sleeping with the Missus when the telephone rang to tell us of the unbelievable news.  We spent the rest of the day, just like the rest of you, glued to our TV and watching the images over and over in disbelief as they burned into our brains for all time.

We were safe, but somehow, that wasn’t enough.  We wanted to be here.  Our living room terrace and window opened up every day to us with those iconic, majestic towers.  They were part of our life.  And now they stood no longer.  Toppled by mad men Hell bent on destruction — horribly unsuccessful in their “success”.

We came back to NYC a month later to a hole in our life and a smell that still lingered – of burning metal and falling people.  The morning after we arrived, we walked down to the crash site still numb from the experience and became even more numb.

For the next ten years, as we looked out on these anniversaries, we would see only two giant shafts of light reaching into the heavens to remind us – as if we needed reminding.

This morning we seem to be threatened again.  I wake up to a day of remembrance, a day of hope, a day of new life, and yet, a day of warning.  I shall take my precautions, but I, like 8 million others of us will go on living in the face of terror because, as the song goes, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”.  Whether that’s true or not, that captures the spirit of New York – the spirit of America.

Today I shall write and create music.  No matter where this day takes us, I shall do what I was put on this earth, in this fair city, to do.  Nothing will stop me from doing that.  No confused minds, destructive thought or sad misguided life motives can get in the way of that.  That is my protection from evil.  Simply to do good.

Goodness reigns over evil always and forever.  I will not let this thought go.  Even the people killed ten years ago this morning still live – in spirit, in their own spiritual reality, in our hearts and memory.  Evil, in its proudest moment stands as nothing but a distant memory this morning – shallow in its intent and failed in its purpose.

Its purpose was to weaken; it made us stronger.  Its purpose was to destroy; it made us create and build again.  Its purpose was to make us hate; this morning I feel nothing but love – love for the departed, love for the world.  Its purpose was to create fear; this morning I stand in my window and face the world knowing that God is the only control.  Goodness reigns.  Evil simply loses again and does only what it knows best to do – nothing.

Now the sun is up.  The city wakes.  Many head off to church.  Many take their own moments of inner peace with their God understandings and pause respectfully before heading out on their day.  A few don’t even know what today is.  They missed it in the rush of life.

I wouldn’t miss this for the world.  It’s a day of action, a day of living, a day of dominion over evil, a day of creativity and a day of remembrance.  Tomorrow we shall simply move into the second decade and go about our business.

I hold to the understanding that God is in control, evil is nothing and life is full, rich with blessings and eternal in its nature.  I am a being.

That’s ‘being’.  I am.  I live.  My life is.  The whole concept includes nothing but the idea of continuation – the continuation of goodness.

Have a great day!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• WFM Listening Room Series II – 2
• Breaking The Logjam
• Spiritual Scientist
• Resisting Evil
• Hitting The Wall

So it would be only natural for me to post the lyric of one of many love songs written over a lifetime.  But instead, I’ll post a new song, a song I’ve been working on for some time now and just finished over the weekend.

As a result of a very powerful healing I’ve just had, I decided in my life work that I needed to focus on loving people a lot more.  In purifying my thought, as I’ve had to do, it became quite evident to me that I simply needed to love more.  Now it’s easy to love The Missus more, but where I needed to focus was on the average Joe or Jane – let’s call it the people of the world – those known and unknown by me.

So I’ve been reading and studying this word “love’ and all its ramifications.

I came across an article written by a Christian Science lecturer, one Grace Bemis Curtis, C.S.B. of Pittsburgh, PA.  In it, she talks in depth about the power of love.  The article became the flyleaf of a workbook that I’ve been carrying around the house from room to room lately as I snatched a few moments to read and study between otherwise activities.

The article definitely inspired the following song that I finished yesterday and presented to The Missus today as a Valentine present.  This wasn’t one of those songs that made her swoon or tingle, but it did touch her heart and she will be singing it in good time.  It’s about the stirring of the human mind to a change of base, to a higher state of thinking.  For me it’s about getting a firmer grasp on my own spiritual sense.

Here’s the lyric:

Love Is The Reason For Living

Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

We dwell in the arena
Of immense conflicting forces
Our lives are swayed by counsel
From a million diff’rent sources
As we near each troubled crossroad
With a rising tide of fear
And wonder what becomes of us
When the tidal waves appear

We cannot help but turn to God
To summon His defense
To stir instead the floodtides of love
His sustenance
His deliverance

And so we strip away the falsehood
From the truth of who we are
And commit our lives
To innocence once again

Love is the answer
Love is every answer
Love is God forgiving
Love is the reason for living
Yes love is the reason
For living

We long to stand the summit
In the pinnacles of spirit
Where death no longer finds us
No and we no longer fear it
And the light of life surrounds us
With its infinite embrace
And love pervades our consciousness
And evokes its change of base

Love is the answer
Love is every answer
Love is God life-giving
Love is the reason for living
Yes love is the reason
For living

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Nothing
• Love Is The Reason For Living
• Wonderful
• Light At The End Of The Tunnel
• You Must Remember This!

I wrote the date on a check the other day and it was 1/1/11.  I thought to myself, “Now that’s a real beginning.”   As CEO and Creative Director of Watchfire Music I thought that I ought to take stock of our company and see how this idea of Inspirational music is doing.  If there was ever a time for re-evaluation, it’s 1/1/11.

So I’ve spent the last couple of days mulling over the direction and progress of our company and I’ve decided that this year should not be about starting over, but rather, finishing what we started.

I think that last year we started far too many projects that we simply did not finish.  In a sometimes almost desperation to be successful and make money, we too often hop-scotched around searching for the golden ring and consequently were not as productive as we could have been.

As it turned out, we had the best year we’ve ever had, but there was still, clearly, room for growth and progress in the right direction.

So this year we have reorganized, cut back spending on what are now deemed superfluous activities and are focusing now on the original idea of Watchfire Music – how we can inspire people’s lives with music.

About a month ago I wrote down a new purpose for our company.  I’ll admit to being inspired by one of the music bloggers that I read daily, Bob Lefsetz, who writes an often crass, but astute insight on the music business.  Much of what I wrote down I took from one of his more prescient posts.  It went like this:

The opportunity

to build something bigger than ourselves,

something worth contributing.

The ability to make connections,

to lend a hand,

to invent and create.

The chance to Inspire.

We’re full of God’s great ideas.  Sometimes there’s more than we can handle.  So we have to be more selective.  Go with what we know in our hearts and minds to be true.  Go with what our customers need and want.

There was a great period of time where, admittedly, we were trying to build a hundred million dollar company.  When you have investors, when you have business school leadership, when you have entrepreneurial spirit, one can sometimes get suckered into this kind of thinking.  I’m not saying that this kind of thinking is bad, mind you.  If we were building widgets, that would probably be the modus operandi.

However, we are in the business of Inspiration.  Perhaps last year taught us that this business should not be dollar driven, but instead, different than the norm.  So we’re going to chance to be different.  Perhaps we won’t sell the company in five years and all retire to the good life.  Perhaps we’ll work it for the rest of our lives and hope for the best.

But that hope needs to be the hope to inspire, not to make a financial killing.  Of course we need to make money to survive, but that will no longer be the forefront thought to our existence.

If we “Chance to inspire”, we clearly take our chances, but if we are successful at inspiring, then it seems more than likely that the financial part should take care of itself.

Another great Bob Lefsetz quote that I typed out and pasted to my desk is this:  “But can you build something so good people will be drawn to you?”

Here is the answer to good business – not advertising, not better promotion, not bigger staff, but simply a product that will draw people to us.  Well, our product is Inspiration.  Can we better inspire you?  Can we inspire you so deeply that you are drawn to us on a daily, weekly, monthly level?

That’s our objective.  Build a better mousetrap.  Write better music.  Think more deeply when it comes to lyric writing.  Inspire a world.

We’re gonna give it a shot.

Even More Inspiration

• Love Is The Reason For Living
• Just Imagine
• The Decline of Lyrical Craftsmanship – Part 1
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• Even Now

The creation of the Watchfire Music Collection – thematic compilation CDs featuring the best music of Watchfire Music artists.

Send To A Friend – Send the gift of music to a friend along with a personalized seasonal gift card.  It’s easy and quick!

Catch up on Sparks From The Fire – monthly fliers featuring the best of posts from the past month.  Easy to follow and comprehensive.

Accompaniment tracks from our DSM division for vocalists everywhere.

Solo Thoughts 2.0 — a superb resource tool for all soloists, music committees, and musicians in Christian Science Churches.

Solo Treasures – a comprehensive list of classic and out-of-print solos that may be in your church music library.

WFM Radio — choose from a growing list of 2 hour music programs featuring ?the best of our Watchfire Music artists.

The beginning of a comprehensive Choir Music catalogue from our DSM composers.

Fascinating Interviews from Julia Wade’s blog, Inspiratus, featuring many of our DSM composers.

New artists Désirée Goyette, Roger Brainard, Rod Kinny, Serah, and Charles Owens II and new CDs from Chieli Minucci, Branice Mckenzie, Julia Wade, Jenny Burton, and Brad Ross.

New Composers Andrew D. Brewis, Peter B. Allen, Désirée Goyette, Rebecca Minor, John William Gordon, and new titles from Carolyn Kardinal, Pressman and Ponzek, Peter Link, Greg Granoff, The Solo Committee, Deborah Offenhauser, and Kevin Cox among others.

The Watchfire Music Listening Room – highly successful NYC concert series led by Julia Wade and featuring Watchfire Music artists and top NYC music acts working in all genres!

Organ and piano scores for your church services from WFM composers.

WFM artist participation in A Million Minutes for Peace, Jenny Burton’s moving tribute singing “The Prayer of St Francis”.

Watchfire Music’s Inspirational Music Library for Film, Television and Advertising!  Listen to samples from thousands of the best inspirational songs available for licensing.

And lastly, we’d like to thank you, our customers, for making the 4^th quarter of 2010 the best quarter in terms of sales in the history of the company.

It’s going to be a Happy New Year!

Even More Inspiration

• Even Now
• Gettin’ It Done
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• Phoenix Rising
• Kickstarter.com Campaign – I
• Love Is The Reason For Living

Christmas in Central Park

Christmas in NYC!  There’s nothing quite like it.  Truly beautiful, but sometimes a bit too much about Santa and not enough about Jesus.  Each year I go back to the same moment years ago when I first wrote this song to try to rediscover the essence of Christmas.

I’ll share it with you now:

Christmas In My Soul

Music and lyrics by Peter Link

It looks as though

There won’t be snow on Christmas

And the holly and the mistletoe

Were sold out long ago

The midtown rush was just a little too much

And this year Santa and his reindeer

Never left the pole

Suddenly it just don’t seem like Christmas

Suddenly it don’t seem so natural

Looking for Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Trying to find a little Christmas in my soul

Takin’ my time

Trying to find a little Christmas in my soul

But somehow a church bell caught my ear

Somehow a little child caught my eye

Somehow an old man playing on his trumpet

Stopped that drummer in me

With a ty- rie -die-dee-i

Rie -die-dee-i

Rie -die-dee-i-i-i-i

And suddenly it all seemed very simple

And suddenly it all seemed so natural

Looking for Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Trying to find a little Christmas in my soul

Somehow the whole affair almost slipped on by

I nearly lost the childhood dream

I plumb forgot the reason why

And all my Christmas longings

Were simply left behind

As I went running through the wrappings

And the ribbons and the rhyme

And rollin’ through December

Like a man against time

Rockefeller Center at Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Looking for Christmas

Trying to find a little Christmas in my soul

Takin’ my time

Trying to find a little Christmas in my soul

Takin’ my time

Trying to find a little Christmas in my soul

As performed by The Jenny Burton Experience

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I hope you find your true Christmas spirit.

Even More Inspiration

• I Stood In The Wings… Part 3
• Gabriel, Come Blow Your Horn
• WFM Listening Room — Series II Opener
• WFM Learning Lab – Grand Opening!
• Wonderful
• Phoenix Rising