Giving Thanks! As we settle down for winter, I'm grateful for many things. Here's the latest news from Sleeping Giant Records.

Due to popular demand the CD ADIRONDACK GREEN is available once again. This 1985 album of traditional and original Adirondack music was the very first Sleeping Giant release. It includes field recordings of Cecil Butler playing fiddle and reminiscing in his kitchen, and fellow musicians John Kirk, Dan Duggan, Marc Facci and the Newton Street Irregulars. While it first came out as a 33 rpm record, and a year later as a cassette, it was remastered for CD in 2001. (The rumor of it having once been an 8-track is not true!)

FRESH TERRITORY, the 12th and latest from Sleeping Giant, has had a wonderful reception and incredible sales since its June release. Sing Out! the premiere folk magazine in the country, selected "Power from Above" for publication in its Fall 2006 issue and it's on their sampler CD. Several songs from the album have been getting airplay on radio stations from the Adirondacks and New England to Kansas, Texas, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Buffalo and Washington, DC.

In August the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks invited me to be the first Musician-in-Residence at their Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna, NY. I'll be helping visitors to better appreciate our Adirondack heritage through music. Also as part of that position, I've produced a CD for the Association called SHEPHERD OF THE WILDERNESS that will only be available through them, so keep your eye on their website - www.protectadks.org

Chuck Berry celebrated his 80th birthday in October and I produced a tribute that aired on Northeast Public Radio (WAMC-FM Albany) and North Country Public Radio (WSLU-FM Canton). Thanks to NCPR for archiving it, you can hear the five minute piece online at: www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/archive.php?id=8168

Words of gratitude: For health and home, for family and friends; for those who help me make music, present it and play it on the radio; for those who listen to it, come to hear it live and even make their own. I'm grateful to live in a country where people can rally others for a cause, where votes can count and change is possible.

As we celebrate the holidays and prepare to launch into the new year, I leave you with some of "A Drink of Autumn" from FRESH TERRITORY:

The crops are in the barn is full;
The cows are fat, thick is the wool.
Each day is for thanks giving.

We're in the balance: dark and light,
The time for taking stock is right,
And putting things in order.

The pine are guardians of the green,
They keep a promise in between
Till winter turns to springtime.