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Book Seven: Easy English with Beautiful Music - Volume III

This is the third volume of theEasy English with Beautiful Music. This volume was a lot of fun to record in the studio. Once again, we decided on twelve songs for this volume, and yet again, two of my original songs were included.

Here is the track list:

1. Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison)


2. When Susannah Cries (Espen Lind)


3. Still The One (Shania Twain)


4. Partisans Of Ireland (James Branam)


5. Mull Of Kintyre (Paul McCartney)


6. Blowing In The Wind (Bob Dylan)


7. Wild World (Mr. Bigg - Cat Stevens)


8. Sad Eyes (Bruce Springsteen)


9. I Got You Babe (Sonny & Cher - Sonny Bono)


10. Carolina (James Branam)


11. The Fool On The Hill (Beatles)


12. El Condor Pasa (Simon & Garfunkel)

I performed all of the instruments and sang all of the vocals except the lead vocals on Still the One. I sand half of the duet on I Got You Babe. Karolína Hanušová sang lead vocals on Still the One and the other half of the vocals on I Got You Babe. Karolína was s student of mine at a Cyech high school where I used to teach. She entered the studio without ever having heard the songs she was to sing. She learned them on the spot. She did a fantastic job. I've even heard some please say that her version of Still the One sounds better than the original. Another interesting fact: I had strep throat during the last week of the recording. Fortunately, most of the tracks had been recorded. However, if you listen closely to my backing vocals on Still the One and lead vocals on I Got You Babe, you can hear it. I would have preferred to reschedule the studio time, but this would have been very expensive, so we went ahead and recorded. It was a very painful experience.

Czech Customs

Hi again,
I've decided to get away from the book thing for a while. I need to vent about what happened today.

My wife and I received our Christmas gifts from my parents today. I had known that the package was on the way, and after receiving the notification in the mail today (our post office has stopped delivering packages, even small ones) I went to the post office and stood in line for about 30 minutes (which is better than average).

I finally walked up to the window and was promptly asked to pay sales tax on the gifts. You see, before the package was delivered to my local post office, Czech Customs officers determined that I should pay 270 Czech Crowns (about $15) sales tax on the gifts. This is a bunch of crap, if you ask me. First of all, sales tax was paid in the U.S. when the gifts were purchased. Second, I didn't purchase the gifts. Why should I be liable for the sales tax? They were Christmas gifts from my parents, even wrapped in Christmas paper. Even a stupid Customs officer could have seen that.
I've been in this country for a long time, and it seems that every year something new happens to me, demonstrating the lack of intelligence in Czech bureaucrats. They can be naive, arrogant, unintelligent, and dishonest. This is just another perfect example.

--James

Book Six: Easy English with Beautiful Music - Volume II

This is the second volume of theEasy English with Beautiful Music. By this time, I was a veteran when it came to studio sessions, and they went more smoothly. And once again, I had Pavel looking over my shoulder, constantly watching the clock. We decided on twelve songs for this volume, and once again, two of my original songs were included.

Here is the track list:

1. Lemon Tree (Fool´s Garden)


2. Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers, from the film Ghost


3. Strange Currencies (R.E.M.)


4. The Things You Do For Me (James Branam)


5. It Must Have Been Love (Roxette - Per Gessle)


6. Heaven For Everyone (Queen - Roger Taylor)


7. Runaway Train (Soul Asylum)


8. I Can´t Help Myself (Kelly Family)


9. By Your Side (James Branam)


10. Streets Of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen)


11. The Winner Takes It All (ABBA - Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus)


12. Ticket To Ride (Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney)

I performed all of the instruments and sang all of the vocals except the lead vocals on It Must Have Been Love and The Winner Takes It All. Zora Branžovská sang these two songs. There is an interesting story behind this. Originally, a student of mine named Pavlina had agreed to sing these two song, but got a case os strep throat right before the scheduled recording session. I then asked my students if any of them would like to give it a try. Zora reluctant agreed to try. She was very good. She was already familiar with The Winner Takes It All, but hadn’t heard It Must Have Been Love before. She learned the song in the studio.

Today, Zora is a model, somewhere in the world. I hope that she sees this. Well done, Zora!

Book Five: Easy English with Beautiful Music - Volume I

Hi again,
It's time to write about another of my books. There's a lot to write about this book. It's sure to be a long blog entry, but I don't mind writing it if you don't mind reading it.

Book 5: Easy English with Beautiful Music - Volume 1

Pavel Rynt, the owner of Easy English language school (Kralupy, Czech Republic) came to me with an idea. He knew that I was a singer and musician, and he wanted to create a book for learning English with music. I thought it was a great idea. The idea was to go to a music studio, record some songs, and then create translations, vocabulary, exercise based on the songs. While I particularly did not like the title of the book, I agreed. After all he was financing the publishing of the book and the studio time.

Due to licensing issues, all music had to be recorded for the book and cassette. I play several instruments, and I considered this to be the task of my dreams. I also recorded all vocals and harmonies.


Here is the book's track list:

1. Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
   
2. Losing My Religion (R.E.M.)
3. Some Things (James Branam)
4. I Want to Break Free (Queen)
5. America (Simon and Garfunkel)
6. Return to Sender (Elvis Presley)
7. Yesterday (Beatles)
8. Too Much Love Will Kill You (Queen)
9. Married to the Road (James Branam)
10. Love Is All Around (Troggs, Wet Wet Wet)
11. Friday, I'm in Love (The Cure)
12. Everybody Hurts (R.E.M.)
13. Post War Dream (Pink Floyd)
14. Imagine (John Lennon)

After all was said and done, we recorded 14 songs in about 28 studio hours (which must be a record). It wasn't easy having someone standing behind me monitoring costs while I was recording.

As mentioned earlier, I played nearly all the instruments and sang all the vocals on the tracks. Pavel Krumphanzl was enlisted to play bass on Return to Sender, and I invited a student of mine, Martin Hruby to play guitar on Tears in Heaven (Martin's track was later excluded from the final version of the song due to timing problems). I'm satisfied with most of the songs in the book. I'm not satisfied with I Want to Break Free and Post War Dream. I was rushed while recording, and I think this can be heard in the final version.

The book features two of my songs (Some Things and Married to the Road). I'll write more about these later.

All in all, it was a great experience. And subsequent volumes of this project were better because of what we learned while recording this one.

Pavel, the co-author of the book, didn't have a plan fro marketing the book. So, every Saturday I got in my car and drove to a city in the Czech Republic. I found book stores and sold the book to the owners. I was successful in 90% on cases. Soon the book could be found all around the Czech Republic and even in Slovakia.

Pavel and I developed quite a friendship over the years. Unfortunately, we've fallen out off contact in the past few years. I realize that this is mostly my fault. I moved to the U.S. in 2002 for 3 ans a half years and I haven't been as active as I should in rekindling the friendships I had before I left.

See you tomorrow with Volume 2 of Easy English with Beautiful Music.

Cheers!

--James

My Fourth Book

There are a few interesting things about my fourth published book. Here are a couple:

• This book is the only book written for a flat fee
• This book is the book you can't buy in bookstores
• This book was written for Czech Railways

Let's start from the beginning. After the publication of my first book, I was approached by the owner/director of Fragment Publishing. I was asked to write a book for learning English for the employees of Czech Railways. Specialized vocabulary was to be used, as well as certain situations that a Czech Railways employee might be exposed to.

I was offered 40,000 Czech Crowns to write the book ($2,334 at today's exchange rate). I said no. This was a not enough for a book that was supposed to have a least 360 pages. I suggested 160,000 Czech Crowns ($9, 357) for the book which would take at least 8 months to write. The director of Fragment returned to Czech Railways with my offer. They agreed, and I got to work writing.

Months later, after I had turned in the manuscript, I was notified that the book had gone through editing and was soon to be published. Only one page was not seen by the editor. This was a title chapter page, and shouldn't have had any errors, so editing was deemed not necessary by the publisher. Well, guess what. There is a major type in the title of the chapter. They spelled Eurorail E-u-r-o-r-i-a-l.

I was heartbroken. So much work had gone into the book, and the publisher had dropped the ball ... again. You see, I haven't mentioned that in my third book, the cover says The Nosy Neighbor, by the inside cover page says Mistaken Identity.

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Oh, by the way, I'm writing about these books out of chronological order. Rather than blog about a single book in a blog entry, it's easier to group some books together. You'll see what I mean in my next blog entry where I'll talk about the books Easy English with Beautiful Music, Volumes 1-4 which were published over a period of six years.

That's it for today.

Cheers!

--James

My Second and Third Books

Hi all,

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, my publisher received several letters asking when Bill Lorentz's next case would be. (Bill Lorentz is my bumbling detective). I was asked to write a second book, and I did.
The format of this book was changed drastically to make the book more suitable for a larger target audience. Lots of useful information was added (exercises, etc), to help the reader better his/her English skills. I personally believe that the story was a bit better too. In the book, my detective once again misses almost every clue there is, jumps to incorrect premature conclusions, and almost gets his balls bitten off by rottweilers. His maid once again solves the case.
The book was received well, and I received quite a few letters asking for more. One girl in Southern Bohemia even created the Bill Lorentz Fan Club. I'm proud to say that the club had five members. My publisher, however, concluded that the book was aimed at a very thin slice of the English-learning community, and sales - although good - were not good enough for a third case. The format of the book worked better than the original format in the first detective story, and they decided to republish the first book in the new format. Mistaken Identity thus became The Nosy neighbor, and was published about a year later.
I was able to improve the story a little, and I added all the extras mentioned above. The books sold relatively well, but I did receive a couple of letters from unhappy readers who had bought the book, thinking that it was a new case for Bill Lorentz. There were some new things in the case, but the case ended up solved in the same. way. I sent free copies of my other book to readers, hoping to console them.

Even though Bill Lorentz is no longer active, I've been thinking about creating more cases for him. If I get enough of them, I may publish a novel about him. Well see.

Well, I think I've written enough for today. I'll try to write a few words tomorrow, if I get some time. There's still a lot to write about.

Cheers!

--James