This was a song I worked on translating with my then mentor, Jean Kelly, in 1994, and I performed it as the finale to a one-man show I put on San Diego in 1995. I was only 28 then! If you can’t tell, I sang & signed this song simultaneously– a hard feat because what I was signing was not the same as what I was singing. I signed it as ASL as I could while singing English. Do you like it? Leave a comment to let me know what you think. Or, if you would sign it differently, post a video response.

By the way, looking back I can see that I took this song too slow, and my singing and signing were a bit over-the-top. Oh, well!

P.S. “Over the Rainbow” was composed by Harold Arlan with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg. It is from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, and it was sung by Judy Garland in the role of Dorothy. Judy Garland was known for "Over the Rainbow" her whole life. My piano accompanist on this song was James Bianchi.

I put on a one–man cabaret concert in 1996. This is one of the songs I sang— “Try To Remember” from The Fantasticks, lyrics by Tom Jones & music by David Schmidt. This performance was held at A Better Worlde Galleria in the Mission Hills neighborhood of San Diego, California in 1996. My pianist was James Bianchi.

Sums up how I feel about meeting my life partner, Andy, almost five years before the day I recorded this. From the Broadway musical On The Town, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden & Adolph Green.

I posted this almost a year ago on our family blog via Flickr (no closed-captions), and at the time, I was critical of my own performance. Now, I just enjoy it. I hope you do, too.