HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow, it's been a while since I updated the news here. I hope everyone had great holidays. I was unfortunately sick over Thanksgiving, which made us change our Thanksgiving day plans. We were supposed to go to visit family about an hour north of us, but since I was sick, it was just our little family of 5 (who are currently home.) We were able to get together for Christmas and New Years with our other family members, so that was a good thing. The most exciting thing about Thanksgiving was a phone call I received from my son in Georgia. He called to let me know his wife is expecting - so I'm gonna be a grandpa in July! How cool is that?

On Christmas day, we were able to Skype with my oldest daughter who is currently in Puerto Montt, Chile in the Chile Osorno mission. We send emails back and forth on Mondays, but seeing her and talking to her, even though it was on a computer screen, was quite awesome! She is extremely excited to be serving a mission, and has been having positive experiences. Being in the southern hemisphere, she is now into summer - she said last week it got all the way up to 82! :-) Her mission is the most southern mission in Chile. In fact, in one of the cities where the elders work, they see penguins occasionally.

You may have noticed that there are more shows available now - I'm keeping the 8 most recent shows available instead of just 6. So, if you missed a show that you really wanted to hear (like the four Christmas shows), they will be available to download a little longer. After the last Christmas show, I took a little time off, and just released the first show of 2012 this past Monday. Be sure to give it a listen!

I've got Show 130 in the works and hope to have it out on Monday - there will be a couple of exciting new songs that we'll hear on this show. Be sure to come back and give it a listen. Have a great week!

Some Good News!

First off, I've got Show 124 queued up and ready to be released later tonight. Be sure to check the show notes for the info on the songs and their artists. Secondly, I am happy to announce that Stephanie Mabey reached her fund-raising goal so she will soon be releasing a new CD within the next few months. A big thank you to those of you who helped make Stephanie's dream a reality!

This week's show has two shout-outs. The first is a Happy Birthday shout-out to Elder Daniel Bensberg, who is in his second year of his mission in the England Leeds Mission. Daniel's brother, Mikey, told me about Daniel's birthday and asked me to give him special mention on the show. The second shout-out is to my daughter who is currently in Puerto Montt in the Chile Osorno mission. She is fortunate to be enjoying a budding spring and warming weather. She is also serving with Hermana Turcios, who happens to be from the city where I began and ended my mission, San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

If you have someone you'd like me to give a shout-out to, just drop me a quick message using the contact link on this page, or you can catch me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/slars for my personal page and http://www.facebook.com/ldsmt for the LDS Music Today Facebook page.

As I mentioned in the show notes, be sure to listen to the podcast to hear about a special bonus that you may be eligible for. If you enjoy one of the artists in today's show, you'll want to take action when you hear the bonus mentioned in the podcast.

One last thing - I still have some open slots for music for the Christmas shows, so if there is something you'd like to hear in the Christmas shows, let me know and I'll try to get your suggestion into one of the shows. I will be producing 5 Christmas shows, even though there are only 4 Mondays between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Four weeks just doesn't seem long enough time to play Christmas music, so I'm extending it out an additional week. Who knows, I may slip a Christmas song into the show every now and then in the coming year.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and an awesome Christmas season!

Happy Friday!

I've just finished putting together the order for Show 123. Wow! Can it be 123 already? I started the show at number 36 on August 14, 2006. That's hard to believe as well.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. In Show 123, we get to hear a track from a brand new CD that was just released this week. It is a track from Hilary Weeks' new album called Every Step. We'll also hear from Corey Cluff and the Spin and their Gorgeous Holiday album, Cheri Magill from her Ready album, Jimi Westbrook from the Not Your Mother's LDS Music 2 album, Jeff McLean from the Not Your Mother's LDS Music album (the first one), and Steven Stewart.

They're some great songs, so I know you're going to enjoy the show! By the way, if you like a particular show, hate one, or just have a comment for me, feel free to use the "Contact Me" link to the left and fill out the form to leave me a message. Or you can use the email address there to send a message (or if you're an artist, some new tracks to add to the library!) I love hearing from our listeners around the world.

I'm putting together the song lists for the Christmas shows, so if you have any ideas or requests, let me know. Or, if you have ideas for a theme show, I'd love to hear them as well.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to come back for Show 123 on Monday, October 31!

Greetings, and welcome to LDS Music Today!  I have just completed Show 122, and it will be available for download Monday, October 24, 2011.

As I mentioned in the show, I am beginning to put together ideas for the upcoming Christmas shows. Christmas will be here before you know it! I'm looking for ideas for songs to play in the Christmas shows, so if you'd like to offer your input, check out the "Artists In Our Library" link and see what we have available, then you can email me using the "Contact Me" link in the left-hand menu. Also, if you have suggestions for other shows or just want hear a particular artist or song, let me know! You can also post your ideas on our Facebook page here.

I also mentioned the Mormon.Org push the Church is doing for missionary work, and specifically mentioned the Alex Boye' page, and you can also see my page here. If you're interested, you can create your own profile on Mormon.org by clicking on the "Create Profile" link at the bottom of the page.

I have also been mentioning my daughter's mission on several shows. If you're interested in following her activities, you can read her Chile Osorno mission blog at http://blogs.larsenclan.me/jessica. We are also supporting Jessica's best friend, Kari, and I am maintaining a blog for her as well. Kari's blog is at http://www.hermanaanderson.com. Kari was called to the Peru Lima West mission, but due to Visa challenges, is working at the Temple Square mission and loving it!

Have a great week and we'll see you in the next show!

Welcome to LDS Music Today!

I've been neglecting the website, and I'm going to be changing my ways. I've honestly been spending my time updating the Facebook page (at www.facebook.com/ldsmt. But, with Facebook's many unannounced changes, people seem to be moving away from Facebook, and I decided I need to keep the real website up to date. I'm planning on posting here at a minimum of once a week.

At the suggestion of Mark Hansen, I created this week's show as another rockers show, and since we featured men in the previous rockers show, this week we'll be hearing from the rocking ladies. Let me tell you, our ladies know how to work the guitar! :-) We get to hear from Stephanie Mabey, Maren Ord, Jenny Jordan Frogley, Softsong, Felicia Sorensen, and Cheri Magill. If you like rocking guitars, you'll love this week's show!

For details of the show and links to our ladies' web sites, be sure to check the show notes by clicking on the "Show Notes" link in the left-hand Main Menu. You can also get the show notes delivered to your mailbox each week by subscribing to the email list - just click on the "Subscribe To The Show" link to the left.

As I mentioned in the show, Stephanie Mabey is working on getting funding for her latest CD project. Please show your support of our independent LDS artists by helping to fund her project. Just visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stephaniemabey/wake-up-dreaming to pledge your financial support of her project. Stephanie will accept any pledge, as little as $1.00 or as much as you wish to pledge. The pledges must be entered by 8:00 PM EDT on October 8, or the CD will not be created. With the various pledge levels, you can choose from gifts ranging from a digital copy of the CD (for only $10 - think of it as pre-ordering the CD!) all the way up to a personal CD release concert for you and 35 of your favorite humans at a condo in Deer Valley, UT, which includes overnight accomodations for 4 and a day spa package for a pledge of $2,500 or more. As of the updating of this blog, Stephanie needs just under $3,000 to reach her goal.

I enjoyed making the Rocking Ladies show this week, and I love to get suggestions from you all. If you have any ideas for an upcoming show or just want to say "Hi", drop me a quick note by using the Contact Me link left-hand menu.  Or, you can message me via Facebook via the LDSMT page at facebook.com/ldsmt or via my personal facebook page at facebook.com/slars.

I hope you all have a great week, and that you enjoy the upcoming General Conference!

I'm sitting here chatting with Jason Jones on Facebook, and he asked me when I was going to update this page. I told him I've been lazy. :-)

So, I've decided to repent and update the main page here. I've just released Show 112, which has three songs of a patriotic theme. I wish I had more patriotic music, but it's a someone limited genre, so I played what I could. I also sneaked in some Sousa at the end of the show. You gotta have some Sousa for the 4th of July!

In today's show, I've put out a request for help from our listening audience. I'd like to start putting together two new segments for the show, the first being a newscast and the second a "promote our artists" segment where I talk about upcoming gigs that our artists will be doing. So, if you'd like to be involved with creating the show, here's your chance! If you'd like to do a newscast and record your own audio, just email me the mp3 by the Saturday before the upcoming show. If you're mic-shy or don't have the equipment but want to help out, you can compile news stories and email them to me and I'll read them on the show.

I'm also looking for help in gathering information about upcoming gigs that our LDSMT artists will be doing in the near future. As I mentioned in the show, I'd like to help keep our artists off the streets, or on the streets, as the case may be.

In my free time, I've been playing with a new configuration for this site, and you can see it at http://new.ldsmusictoday.com. I try to keep it updated along with this main site, but it may fall behind now and then.

I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday weekend - those of you in the US that is. For everyone else,I hope you have a great week anyway. :-)

Effective April 8, 2010

Privacy Notice Table Of Contents:

• Our Commitment To Privacy
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Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 13.

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Happy Springtime, Everybody!

I published Show #108 for release yesterday, and just updated and emailed the show notes, so be sure to check them out. Also, if you're not following LDS Music Today on Facebook, be sure to visit www.facebook.com/ldsmt. I tend to keep the LDSMT status updated there more regularly than I do here. You can also follow LDS Music Today on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ldsmt. I have Twitter linked to my Facebook status, but the status is limited to around 140 characters on Twitter, so they often get chopped off at the end, but there is a link you can click on to see the whole message.

Now, for those of you who haven't heard yet......My oldest daughter received her mission call earlier this month, and is going to the Chile Osorno mission. I believe it's the furthest south mission in the world, and I've asked her to bring me home a penguin when she returns. :-) Do you want to see something funny and somewhat amazing? Check out this video of Jessica opening her call, and listen to what I say before she takes the call out of the envelope. You may have to be friends with me to see the video, so feel free to friend me. My facebook page is www.facebook.com/slars.

I hope you all have a great week, and I look forward to putting out next week's show!

Happy Monday!

Show Number 106 is now available to download and hear. I am happy to say that we are back on a weekly schedule. My schedule hasn't freed up that much, but I decided that if I don't make time for the show now, I never will. So, I made the renewed commitment to put out a weekly show once again.

I'll let you in on a little secret that I'm only sharing with those of you who visit the LDS Music Today website. I create the shows two weeks at a time. The music and song order for show 107 was decided at the same time as 106, and I recorded the speaking for 107 yesterday, after I completed recording show 106. I will be mixing and proofing show 107 through the coming week and it will be available to download at 10:00 PM MDT next Sunday.

If you're not aware, I send the show notes out each week via email to our email list. You can join the list by clicking the "Subscribe To E-Mail List" link in the menu to the left. For the most part, the only messages that go out on the list are the show notes, but once in a while, we get a little discussion going about a song or artist in a recent show. Feel free to sign up, and I promise not to fill up your email box.

As promised on Show 106, I am posting the lyrics to Andy Shelton's song "Maria." You can also find these lyrics at Andy's website.

Maria

Ay ay Maria,
que te ha pasado?
Cuando te conoci, enamorado de ti
me habias dejado.
Tenias un cuerpo,
delgado y bello,
pero ya que comiste, cada frijol que viste,
te has engordado.

Oh mi Maria que le paso?
Oh mi Maria se engordo!!!

Everybody sing...cha cha cha.....

Ay ay Maria,
antes era mi alma.
Antes yo te queria,
mi gorda Maria, mi gorda Maria.
Tenias mi mente, tenias mi corazon,
pero todo el dia comistes comida,
en vez de dar mi tu amor.

Oh mi Maria que le paso?
Oh mi Maria se engordo!!!

Everybody sing...cha cha cha......

Que te hicistes oh mi Maria?
que te hicistes oh mi Maria?
que te hicistes Maria, comistes Maria,
mas que una chancha que ama comida
y mas que comida, comistes mi vida
y todo que tengo mas que tenia, Maria

oh mi Maria que le paso
oh mi Maria que le paso
oh mi Maria que le paso
oh mi Maria se engordo

Everybody sing...cha cha cha......

© Andy Shelton

I don't know why, but I found this song very humorous when I was reading the lyrics to my kids. Two of them are fluent in Spanish, so I didn't have to translate for them. By the time I finished reading the lyrics to them, I was laughing to hard tears were running down my cheeks. In retrospect, I guess it wasn't that funny, I might have just been over tired. :-)

Thank you for your support of the podcast! And, if you enjoy the show, tell your friends about it. You don't have to be LDS to enjoy LDS Music Today! And you never know, a show you share may end up being a missionary opportunity for you.

Have a great week!