Holidays



Hi Gang
It's Barry here wishing all my Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah. To all the rest of my friends a very Merry Christmas. Hopefully you all got what you really wanted for Hanukkah or Christmas.  I got a big surprise this year. My album Here At The Mayflower II (Many more stories inside.) is at number one for the fifth week in a row on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart. My Broadway songwriting partners and I just found out Here At The Mayflower is up for some Laurence Olivier Awards next year.  All six of us will be coming across the pond for the award ceremony. The ceremony will take place at the Royal Opera House on Sunday April 2, 2017. ITV will broadcast it live on television. While the BBC will broadcast on the radio.  I just put up on BTV my performance at the Jingle Bell Ball from Friday night. I sang Silver Bells, I'll Be Home For Christmas and River. Later on in the evening me Debra Byrd, Shelly Greco and Dana Robbins did Jingle Bells. Then Debra Byrd and I did Baby It's Cold Outside. Now on Friday December 30th and Saturday December 31st BTV will be broadcasting my Madison Square Garden concerts live for fans who can't be there. Prior to Friday nights concert BTV will broadcast my Friday afternoon sound check. On Tuesday January 3rd I'll be back on the road again at the Moda Rose Quarter in Portland Oregon. Then it's Seattle, Oakland, Phoenix, Vancouver, Edmonton. Regina, Winnipeg  Toronto, Quebec City and Montreal. After those dates I'll be off until June when I start my sheds tour.  Don't forget Wednesday July 5th thru Sunday July 9th is the BMIFC Denver Convention at the Downtown Sheraton in Denver Colorado. I will be doing four nights at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Friday July 7th thru Monday July 10th. Saturday July 8th is the barbeque at Red Rocks. That's instead of the usual formal sit down dinner we always have. At the Red Rocks shows I'll be doing a tribute to my dear friend John Denver. I'm singing three of his songs. Music Is you, Leaving On A Jet Plane and Calypso. Both John and I were friends with ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Now at different times John and I got to go on the RV Calypso. That was Jacques Cousteau's ship. What a thrill that was for both of us to go on the Calypso. John went three times, Australia,  Atlantic Ocean and the Nile. I  went twice Alaska and the Galapagos Islands. Now every year  since my first trip on the Calypso Garry gives me a subscription to National Geographic Magazine. Christmas 2012 Carly got me a subscription to National Geographic Traveler magazine. Now every year I get their vacation travel book. It has vacations all across the world by air, sea and train. As all of you know I volunteer at Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition. I volunteer on Thursday afternoons when I'm not on the road. It's nice to see animals from BARC get themselves a forever home. BARC also takes in dogs from high kill shelters to see if they can find them good forever homes. The thing I don't like is when certain dogs don't find their forever home. Tiny, small and medium dogs have no problem getting a home. Big pure bread dogs, dogs that can be used for guard dogs and service dogs find places to go. Recently while on Facebook I saw a mixed breed dog. His name was Pecan Pie and he was from Magic Mission Beagle and Hound  Rescue up in Buffalo New York. Pecan Pie was a puppy part Labrador Retriever and part something else. Magic Mission Beagle and Hound Rescue was looking for a forever home for this little guy. I just knew he needed a forever home with be with me and Carly. I got their number and called them to tell them I wanted to adopt Pecan Pie,. Kevin Andrews my next door neighbor said he'd go up to Magic Mission Beagle and Hound Rescue to get Pecan Pie. Kevin went up on Thursday and came back on a Friday. He kept the puppy over night. Then the next day Saturday he brought Pecan Pie over to our house. Kevin told Carly the puppy's story and that I had adopted him. Carly gave him a new name. He's called Charlie now. Now we have five dogs. Labrador Retriever four year old male Max, Weimaraner puppies girls sisters Abbey and Bialy, Hungarian Vizsla on year old girl Allie and Labrador Retriever mix male Charlie. I feel sorry for those dogs who have trouble finding their forever home. After I started my One Voice Foundation to give a voice to cats and dogs who can't use their voice. I thought about building a dog sanctuary in upstate New York. This would be a place where dogs would get to spend their entire life being a dog. Now every dog we take in will go up on our sanctuary's website where people can find their forever friend and adopt them. if not they will be able to live out their life on earth just being a dog. Carly found some property just outside of Lake Lucerne New York. It's a four bed, three and half bath farmhouse on fifteen acres of land that is all fenced in. It has a big building where we can house the dogs. Since the newest family member Charlie is a rescue . Carly decided his picture would be perfect on the sanctuary sign. Next year we hope to open Charlie's Home For Life Dog Sanctuary. It will be a place where dogs can live out their forever life. All the dogs that come to the sanctuary are available for adoption. However if they don't get adopted they'll have a forever home at the sanctuary for as long as they live. We're going to employ people from near by Lake Lucerne who love dogs to help us run our dog sanctuary. For our forever residents they will get a proper burial in our dog cemetery when they pass away. Marc thinks I'm nuts. Garry said that's just Barry. Once we have Charlie's Home For Life dog Sanctuary up and running I'll put a link to the sit on my Facebook page. See those of you coming to the Madison Square Garden shows and the end of the week. Then see those of you with tickets to the rest of the surprise arena shows next year.
Hugs and love,
Barry and Carly
Sloppy dog licks from
Max, Abbey, Bialy, Allie and Charlie.