Narrator: Daniel's Music Foundation presents, a Just Call Me By My Name Artist: Daniel Trush & Gerry Powers, from New York, NY.
Description: Two men performing on stage in front of microphones, the man on the right playing guitar. The stage is in front of a large stone hearth.
Daniel and Gerry: (Singing) I'll give you fifty million reasons why, we should open our hearts and our minds--to a community, With so many hopes and dreams.
Description: Two men sitting in a blue classroom, with guitars and musical instruments in the background. Daniel, the man on the right, has straight brown hair and glasses, and is wearing a suit jacket and a blue button-down. Gerry, on the left, is an older man with combed-up grey hair, also wearing a suit jacket and blue button-down.
Daniel: My name is Daniel Trush.
Gerry: And my name is Gerry Powers.
Daniel: Music means everything to me, because it just brings so much joy and happiness to the world. There's so much negativity going on, and we're just trying to flip it a little bit.
Description: Footage of Daniel and Gerry performing at a different venue--a large concert hall with a screen behind them.
Gerry: Music is just one of those things that is so inexplicably wonderful in my life. Being a musician for such a long period, and a big percentage of my life, has shown me so many things. It's just one of those gifts that keeps on giving.
Description: Quick shots of Daniel and his family growing up, as well as Daniel and Gerry at Daniel's Music Foundation's music center.
Daniel: I was a musician before the accident--I used to play the guitar and the trumpet. Music was a part of my recovery--my father played these two Gloria Estefan songs for me over and over again when I was in a coma, and I had never heard either of those songs before in my life, but then somehow when I came out of my coma, I knew all of the words to those songs.
Description: Daniel and Gerry in the recording studio, featuring monitors, a keyboard, and a mixer. Gerry is holding a guitar, and they are talking and laughing together.
What has changed for me being a musician now is that now I'm writing my own music, and I never thought that I would do that before. I get the inspiration for my lyrics from life experience, and sometimes Gerry helps get 'em out of me.
The best part about having Gerry as my songwriting partner, is that he always makes me laugh, and that gets the best out of me.
Gerry: Daniel's best aspect as a songwriter is that he's spontaneous. Oftentimes, just to open up the whole process of creativity, we laugh a little bit. We usually start by talking about something really goofy or silly, and that gets the creative juices flowing.
We talk about silly things, and then, we start talking about things that are important to us, and Daniel has a knack of just saying something like it's etched in stone somewhere in the world--That will just open up a whole new set of possibilities in my mind, with just a couple of words, which is, to me, very amazing.
Description: Quick cuts from out the window of a charter bus, showing upstate NY.
Daniel: We're headed to Woodstock! We're gonna sing--we're gonna perform.
Gerry: I'm pretty excited about going to Woodstock today, and I'm really excited for the artists, because everybody's so pumped.
Description: Images of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, and the site of Woodstock '69, ending with Daniel and his father Ken Trush standing outside, by a field with a large peace sign.
Ken Trush: Being here, at Woodstock, you can almost feel the energy that was here fifty-four years ago. Just imagine, Daniel--we're looking here, you're performing on the stage, and all over here--400,000 people...How awesome would that be?
Daniel: That would be very awesome.
Description: Daniel, standing in front of the indoor stage at Bethel Woods, wearing a shirt that says "Just Call Me By My Name"
Daniel: I feel amazing right now, it's so much fun! I'm most looking forward to performing on this historic stage, and if I have to be totally honest, I'm looking forward to the applause at the end.
Description: Daniel and Gerry, performing on the indoor stage at Bethel Woods
Daniel: I included a song that I wrote with Gerry called "50 Million Reasons" on the label, and it's dedicated to the over fifty million individuals in this country living with a disability
Gerry: It kind of explains the perspective of someone that has a disability--that if you don't look past the disability, you won't see what they really are, as far as their talent is concerned.
Daniel and Gerry: (Singing): I have gifts you don't know about, which aren't too hard to figure out, if you would spend a little time with me. I'll give you 50 million reasons why, we should open our hearts and our minds, to a community, with so many hopes and dreams.
Daniel: Joining a label for musicians with disabilities, it was important to me personally, because it's a way for more people to be able to hear my music.
Gerry: Joining a label for musicians with disabilities is so important, because, there are so many musicians out there who have disability that are just not recognized, and that's a travesty. The inclusivity of this underserved group of musicians in the world is so obviously important, and they deserved to be recognized for their gifts and their talents.
Daniel and Gerry (Singing): If understanding and compassion, suddenly became the latest fashion, how beautiful, all the world would be.
(Audience applause)
Narrator: Visit danielsmusic.org/recordlabel to learn more, stream, or download today. Daniel's Music Foundation: Changing Lives Through Music Since 2006.