SIMPLY GRAND/Summer Blog 2017

I share this story to inspire you.

Our daughter got married this year. It was in March and the wedding was in Baton Rouge. William and his family are from that part of the country and our daughter now lives there. She has a great job and two dogs.

Instead of flying, Tim and I decided to drive from Minneapolis to Baton Rouge, straight south. It's a two-day drive, actually a lot shorter than I thought it would be. We both thought it would be nice to take our own car (it has 180,000 miles on it) and take our time. It would be our only vacation this year and we'd be there a week. On a fun note, Tim volunteered to be the DJ at the wedding reception (can you imagine how great he was . . . ), so we had a lot of sound gear to pack and bring along. For me, I liked the idea of driving because I thought it would be nice to just sit and do nothing. We work so hard.

About six hours into the trip, I had my iPad out and told Tim I had heard that some of my retired and out-of-print music books were starting to become valuable. It was rumored that people were trying to sell some of my books on Ebay for big bucks. I've never looked at that kind of thing before, but because I had time, I decided to look on Ebay and see if there were any Lorie Line music books for sale. Sure enough, Music From The Heart was the first book that popped up. Two people were trying to get $300 to $500 for their book. (Personally, I have one copy and there is a sticker on the cover that says DO NOT SELL. LORIE'S COPY.) Well, I scrolled down and here comes up another book, VOGUE. The seller was asking $1700 for the book. Are you kidding me?! Now, they probably won't get that kind of money for the book, but how flattering was that! 

Here's the deal. Some of my books are retired and/or out-of-print because the licenses are just too expensive to purchase again. With about 50 books in our inventory, we have to decide if the cost (and the risk) is worth it. Because of this, some of my books have become valuable. 

Well, the next book that is out of print and starting to become valuable is SIMPLY GRAND.

So, today I'd like to share with you the story of SIMPLY GRAND.

Seventeen years ago I recorded this solo piano album and published the music book. I made the horrible mistake of giving it to our local Minneapolis music critic, Jon Bream. Now I would describe Jon as "old and curmudgeonly." I would never be his type. No matter what (although the most flattering thing he ever said about me was that I was a modern-day Audrey Hepburn). But I'm not his type because I'm not a granola girl. I love beautiful things. I have a different faith. And I'm happy.

Jon is the kind of critic who says a few nice things about you, then takes you down. Oh, so low. It cuts straight to the heart. Or really the gut. For my album SIMPLY GRAND, he said a few nice things, but his last sentence is one I will never forget . . . something like . . . "this album is nice, but really it is just a little more simple . . . than it is grand." 

Ugh.

Straight to the heart. My heart. Of course I recovered, but I never passed along another album to him, and to this day I have never seen or heard another word from Mr. Bream.

In church the other day I listened to how Abraham waited and waited for God's promise to be fulfilled. How he begged God to give him a son, bless him and multiply his family. How God took him outside and showed him the stars in the heavens. How he waited and waited, until it was impossible to even conceive a child. But God said, "oh, you just wait. . . ." 

Abraham was in his 80's. And then it happened. 

So here I am . . . 17 years later. And now I'm almost 60 years old. 
 
Here's how my story ends. Today, if you type in my name (Lorie Line Radio) on Pandora (which is the most popular digital music radio station in the world), guess what comes up? A song off of my SIMPLY GRAND album. It's called Time To Say Goodbye. I would have never predicted this. It's been playing since Pandora came into existence.

So . . .  guess how many times this one song has played on Pandora over the years? 100,000 times? Ah, that's a good guess.

A half million times? That's a very good guess.

A million? Really? You're kidding me . . . but you're getting closer.

Ok Lorie! Five million spins! (that's what they call it on Pandora . . . "spins"). 

No. Wrong.

10 million times. 

No.

So. . .  I will now tell you.

Are you sitting down? I am. Because it's so hard to believe. It's like God taking Abraham outside and having him look into the heavens and count the stars. So let's go outside. Come outside with me. Look with me into the heavens.

Look up. Count the stars.

Are you ready? Here we go.

85 million times.

Yes. I will type that one out. Eighty-five million spins for Time To Say Goodbye off of SIMPLY GRAND. One song. And I have 14 additional songs off the album that have been played a total of 64 million times (In The Looking Glass; Norwegian Wood; Sweet Dreams; Nevada Skies, and more). 

Unconceivable.

I don't think I could ever count 85 million stars in the sky. 

I guess sometimes it pays to be . . .  simple.

Oh victory in Jesus, my Savior forever.


SIMPLY GRAND is Lorie Line's best selling music book of all time. 
If you are interested in hearing Time To Say Goodbye and other songs off of SIMPLY GRAND, just type in Lorie Line Radio on Pandora and the songs off this album will come up on your play list.
Time To Say Goodbye is the number one Lorie Line download on SheetMusicPlus.com, an official web site that sells copyright music. You can purchase it on this web site.
Nevada Skies is currently the featured FREE download of the month (September) on the official Lorie Line web site. 
Pandora pays a fraction of a penny for every 1500 spins. 
To this day, Jon Bream remains a critic at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Thank you for listening to Lorie's music on Pandora.

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