Money may not make the world go around, but it does help gather people together sometimes to give it a little push.  In this day and age of the music industry blues, sometimes that little push is needed.  In the case of Inspirational music the time is now.

Consequently we have begun a 30 day Kickstarter.com campaign to raise money to complete and promote a CD project that I’ve been working on now for over a year and a half.

It’s the making of new CD called “Goin’ Home” and a subsequent National Tour around this CD.  It involves an inspiring blend of great tradition and cutting-edge new music and deals with a very important aspect of each of our lives.

It deals with the experience at the end of our lives that we each face eventually that I like to call “transition”.

In the words of Jenny Burton, one of the project’s stars, “It’s a subject that, at first, we walk away from, but will walk towards one day, so why not walk towards it informed and without fear.”

I, personally, would like to go through that experience, when it comes, fully aware and alert, expectant joyful, and filled with spiritual curiosity.  When it comes to that transition, we Americans tend to look the other way and pretend that it doesn’t exist.  I don’t want to be like that.

What better way to prepare than to write about it.

So Goin’ Home is about Heaven and beyond.  I’ve thought from childhood that the much of the world’s perception of Heaven, though certainly idyllic, was really rather like a fairy tale or a Santa Claus story.  In a song entitled Heaven on the CD I write the following:

I don’t believe in Heaven
As a place up in the sky
A place where all the angels sit
As the clouds go passin by

I don’t believe in Heaven
Dressed in white and gold
A city in a world upstairs
Where all of our wings unfold
And a God sits upon his throne

I see it more as a state of mind
Since my body gets left behind
I see it more
As an open door
To a life of another kind

I don’t believe in Heaven
As a place this side of Hell
A place where all the good folks go
A place where the spirits dwell
An’ ol’ Peter a-rings dem bells

I see it more as a holy space
A place to pause
A spiritual base
I see it more as an open door
To a kind of a quiet grace

And when all is said and done
I think that Heaven
Like earth
Is what we make it
It’s a moment in the sun
It’s a cleansing time
In a state of grace
It’s a place where laughter reigns

Oh it’s Heaven
Heaven
It’s Heaven
Oh it’s Heaven

So this CD and eventual concert tour explores the eventuality that we all face at one time or another.

But it’s also an experience about music and great songs, and uplifting and joyful singing.  It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s rich in its depth and it definitely rocks the house.

Goin’ Home is written as a Gospel Cantata.  A cantata is simply short for “a musical composition for voices and orchestra based on a spiritual text.”

It’s performed by a mostly African American cast of top New York Session singers – great friends that I’ve worked with many years now.  In future posts I’ll tell you much more about this amazingly talented group of artists.

“So what is Kickstarter.com” you must ask.

Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Every week, tens of thousands of amazing people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.

A new form of commerce and patronage. This is not about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project.

All or nothing funding. On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.

We’re giving ourselves 30 days to raise the necessary $9500 of funding.  Those 30 days started October 3, 2011 and will end November 2, 2011.  I urge you to participate in this drive to not only support Inspirational music, but also Watchfire Music, the CD’s record company and on-line place of purchase.  Most of all, I ask you to support the uplifting idea behind the project.  Its purpose is to open our eyes to the timelessness of our future.

Your contribution, whether large or small, is critically important to the success of this endeavor.  Every dollar counts.  If each person on our mailing list just gave one dollar, we’d get there and beyond.

We’d love you to be a part of this very special event.

To learn much more about this endeavor please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/174116135/peter-link-goin-home-cd-and-concert-tour