Busy, Busy, Busy.
It’s been a couple of months since I’ve written and it’s been a busy couple of months. During this time I’ve written couple of songs. One is called When You Walked Through the Door and the music for it was written by my vocal coach Larry Bridges of Bridges Voice Instruction at http://www.anyonecansing.com/ The other song is called As The One That Got Away and the music for that was written by my producer Erich Benedict of with an H media at http://www.withanh.net/ At the same time Erich and I have decided to put together a show and hit [...]
The year is off to a nice start
I actually thought things would slow down after the holidays. My Christmas CD sold well and my music video for The Magic of Christmas got over 123,000 views! But I was done with making CDs and videos and I was going to get back to writing my book. I didn't want to leave You Tube completely behind since they removed my video of Come Fly With Me, because I didn't have a sync license, so I asked Erich Benedict to make a compilation video of my Seattle Center performance. This is the link: http://youtu.be/DEX_QTufsgU I certainly didn't expect to get as many views as the Christmas [...]
Happy New Year!
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since I retired form Microsoft but when you think about everything I’ve done it actually seems longer. Since leaving Microsoft I recorded my first CD, Come Fly With Me, which was a selection of my favorite crooner tunes. I released That’s Life as a single first and it was number one on the Amazon hot new releases list for two weeks. I then released the entire CD and the title song Come Fly With me went to number 1. I was amazed as you were. We then shot the music [...]
The Magic of Christmas
Well my Christmas CD is finally done and available for sale on iTunes, Amazon, and CD Baby. All of which you can access on my buy page at www.georgeasantino.com/buy This CD was a tremendous amount of fun to make and while I’d like to take some of the credit I must admit that I had a lot of talented help. Starting with Erich Benedict of with an H media who directed, produced, mixed and mastered as well as played the piano, guitar, bass, sax, and clarinet. He is truly an amazing talent. Besides my singing you’ll also hear my daughter [...]
Can’t let a little blister stop me
What a great September it was. I got to perform at the Seattle Center 50th Birthday Bash and though I must admit my voice wasn’t perfect the people really seemed to appreciate it. In fact the MC told me that I had the biggest crowd of the day on that stage. I know you’re never supposed to apologize during a performance but I knew I would have sung better if it weren’t for this blister on my vocal chords but when the MC said “if you sound that good with a blister on your vocal chords, I’d find a way [...]
Christmas in August
It seems if you want to release a Christmas CD in time for Christmas you have to start to work on it in August. So that is what I am doing. I’m in the studio singing Christmas songs surrounded by Christmas decorations and trying to get into the spirit singing Baby It’s Cold Outside when it’s finally warm outside here in the Pacific Northwest. I even had to pick the cover for the CD, before I sang the first song, so it could be ready for the holiday gift guides. I had a couple of choices so I put it [...]
My voice might need a rest but that doesn’t mean I get to
So it turned out that I don’t have tonsillitis at all but I do have a problem with my vocal cords. It seems you can't not sing for twenty years and then rush right out and record an album. You can get blisters on your vocal cords just like you can on your feet. The doctor told me not to talk for four days. That was interesting. I used a pad and pencil to communicate. The funny part was when I would write something down and then hand it to a person and instead of just saying their reply they [...]
A new chapter for the book?
The month started off very well. The music video for Come Fly With Me went out and has over 600 views. Both of my singles Come Fly With Me and That’s Life hit number one on the Amazon Hot New Releases list for swing jazz and I’ve starting planning for the Christmas CD. I’ve also had a number of nice articles written about me. Only down side is I haven’t done a real gig yet. Sure I’ve sung some karaoke, which was fun, and I sang at the Prohibition Grille in Everett WA with Bob Strickland and his band. I [...]
Come Fly With Me Music Video
What a journey it has been. I am entering my sixth month of “retirement” and I have released a CD and made a music video. When I wrote my first blog and asked you to “come fly with me” even I didn’t know the excitement I was in for. One thing I wanted to make sure of was to have fun and it has been that. The music video, you can view below, was a lot of work but it was also very exciting. It required a lot of work from a lot of people who are all mentioned elsewhere [...]
The Book and more
In my last blog I mentioned that in addition to everything else I am doing I am writing a book. As my web site mentions I grew up in the projects of South Philly. We were very poor and we wanted a better life. We worked hard to get out of there but there were plenty of setbacks along the way. Even when we did get out life still had plenty of curve balls to throw my way but in spite of getting knocked down many times I always found a way to get back up and move forward. I [...]
Retired? That’s Funny
I’ve been retired for three months now. Retired? That’s funny. My wife would say I didn’t retire at all…that I just changed careers. She’s probably right. After all I just finished recording a CD. I’ve started work on a book. I have a Facebook page, a Twitter page, a YouTube Channel, and I’ve just launched this website. Next week I’m also starting work on a music video for my soon to be released single Come Fly With Me. You can hear that song on this site. I think it came out pretty nice if I do say so myself. To [...]