Well, dear readers, I don’t really know if I can write these here notes. Oh, I’ll write them even if they’re incomprehensibly incomprehensible, which they may well be, given my right hand has been cramping with muscle contractions for most of the evening. It’s never been this bad and I thought that the recommended water drinking was helping but then came this evening and it’s been absolutely unbearable for hours. Oh, it’s abated every now and then but then is back with a vengeance. I just don’t get it. I woke up feeling a lot better. The vocal session went well save for me talking a lot and having my voice get weaker and weaker even though it was fine when I got up. By the time I got home, I almost had no voice at all. And then the contractions began and it was very hard to eat the Panda Express, and I could not get comfortable enough to watch a movie. Plopping down on the bed didn’t work either. Not the way I want to spend my two weeks off, which isn’t even two weeks anymore. Not to mention the holiday season. I would like to feel well and up and perky and wouldn’t that be nice for a change of pace. Sorry for the rant, but I’ve just about had it with all this crapola. As my close personal friends, Babs and Donna once said, enough is enough. I did get ten hours of sleep. First up at the session was Kerry O’Malley. She’s doing a new vocal on what has become one of her signature songs, Where Did the Good Times Go? from Over Here. She was nervous as she hasn’t done much if any recording, but I did my usual spiel about the microphone, and she got comfy real quick. We did three takes and she did a great job. Then it was young Ava Madison Gray – since her singing partner was stuck in traffic we did her solo first, Hushabye Mountain. She’s sung it a few times at Kritzerland so she knew the vibe of the song and she’s a real natural at the mic. I made two little adjustments after the first take, then we did a couple more and that was done. Then came Elena Bertacchi and they did their duet, Ten Feet Off the Ground. It went very well, save for some wrong notes in a couple of places during the counterpoint section that we had to fix. In the end, it was really good and fun. Then Elena did her other duet, this one a Sherman Brothers Teen Medley, which she sang with Benji Fox, the grandson of the wonderful composer, Charles Fox. The first two-thirds was easy and great – then we had a few wrong notes to fix in the final song in the medley, which we did and that was that. Very cute.

Finally, it was Adrienne Stiefel and Robert Yacko to do Are We Dancing? We did a trial run, I gave a few notes, then two more takes and we had it. My engineer wanted to comp the vocals right then, but I had almost no voice left and frankly I was exhausted. So, I told him to do a rough comp using my notes that I’d taken and that we’d finesse that quickly when we finesse the mixes. Oh, and until Kerry arrived we DID finesse the mixes on three songs, so we’re ahead of the game on those. He did that and sent to me, and I’d say that he got eighty percent of it right, and finessing will be VERY simple. We’re doing those finessing things on Tuesday, then all that remains is doing the Guy Haines track that never got a vocal done on the original album. I wasn’t crazy about the track for that song so I’m having Richard Allen do a few things to make it sound more Sherman Brothers and of a piece with the rest of the album. As soon as I get that track, we’ll record that vocal.

I came home, had Panda Express, which was fine, and then the contractions in the hand began and you know the rest. Thankfully, I’ve made it this far, but it hasn’t been easy.

Today, I’ll just take it easy, rest my voice and hopefully this malarkey with the cramping will have stopped. If it has, then I’ll eat, watch some movies, and relax.

Tomorrow, I have to be up early because she of the Evil Eye changed the day again, and I’m none too thrilled about it. I’ll breakfast, do a couple of errands and whatnot, then come home and rest. Tuesday, we’ll finesse the vocals and the rest of the mixes – hoping that won’t take more than a couple of hours. Then I’ll get everything for the Do delivered here, then rest. Wednesday is the Do, Thursday is Christmas and the Darling Daughter, then we’ll do the Guy Haines vocal and that will complete the album that’s taken twenty-four years to get right.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, take it easy, rest my voice, hope the cramping has stopped, eat, watch movies and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-wall day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely posting, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a fun vocal session.