Psadena, CA (Top40 Charts) Last week was a huge week for new country music artist, Tim Sweeney . He released his debut country album, This Time, on iTunes and he attended the Premiere of his first music video, "Baby I Try For You" at Arclight Cinemas to a standing room only crowd, hosted by celebrity hair stylist, Ken Paves. The Premiere began with Paves moderating a 35-minute discussion between singer/songwriter Sweeney and
Director Jules Dameron about the making of the groundbreaking country music video featuring American Sign Language, followed by the showing of the video - https://www.youtube.com/user/timsweeneyofficial.
Sweeney wrote "Baby I Try For You," as a tribute for his son who was born with Down syndrome and Autism and never developed the ability to talk. At the premiere, Sweeney shared that he used to sing his son to sleep by singing "Home on the Range," but after singing it hundreds of times, he started writing other songs to sing to him. Sweeney recalled that for years he never even wrote the lyrics for "Baby I Try For You" down on paper, but sang it to his son every night. After several years, he wrote it down and threw it in a drawer for ten more years.
Paves mentioned the growing popularity of American Sign Language ("ASL") but lauded Sweeney for including ASL "not just as an accessory to a story, but [as] a character in your story." Paves continued, "I think country music is the foundation of storytelling in
America and [the video] shows you can cross all boundaries... and recognize that there are 40 million deaf and hard of hearing people in
America who enjoy music." Sweeney emphasized, "Like some people, I knew sign language existed, but I didn't know to what extent it was actually so beautiful in its interpretation and storytelling."
Jules Dameron , the
Director of the video, who happens to be a deaf filmmaker, commented, "I am truly proud and honored to be an integral part of something that can potentially break down more and more barriers for deaf talents worldwide. I am thankful for Tim Sweeney , and his out-of-the-box thinking."
Sweeney praised Dameron as a
Director saying, " I needed somebody who understood how to merge the storytelling of the song… the storytelling of the video and the storytelling of ASL...I knew that Jules could put those together and I don't believe anyone else could."
The response by the audience to the emotional tone of the video was overwhelming,
"Wow, Tim has such a great voice!"...
"An absolutely beautiful song"...
" It made me cry ... it's so emotional!"...
"The use of ASL adds so much to the meaning of the video"...
"Beautiful, absolutely beautiful!"
The video is available at https://www.youtube.com/user/timsweeneyofficial
Tim Sweeney 's debut album - This Time - is available on iTunes, Amazon and other online music retailers.
