His performance, in spite of the almost crippling pain in his L4/5 disc, was considered near flawless, and he gruesomely endured the night without his cane, thinking that if Clive or Kevin Patrick showed, he didn’t want the cane being the only thing that might’ve gotten in the way of finally signing the 31 yr. old green-eyed multi-talented child prodigy entertainer who, by this point, had now spent an unheard of 12 years trying to get a record-deal with Clive alone, under perhaps the most astronomical circumstances that any musician has ever known.
Crawford,
a survivor,
to put it lightly.

            Kevin Patrick is thought to have backed away from intentions on signing Crawford, shortly after Crawford was hit by the car. It is not known where Jeff Blue stood on the matter.

            Though a signing didn’t occur (and this may have had a lot to do with the area being so secluded which might’ve prevented certain parties from attending), one thing that did occur, was a strong welcoming of praise by his packed-house native New Mexican audience, whose applause for the struggling young musician, shot through the roof upon his completion of the song, I Made It Through The Rain; originally a Barry Manilow 1980 hit, but one Crawford had hand picked for the benefit whose theme was ‘rain,’ and the hope that came out of it. The irony of all this, is that Crawford, himself, was at perhaps his most hopeless and most painful state ever, yet still somehow managed to pull in a sold out crowd, by playing only one single song about the success of rising above the odds, all without most of the public ever catching on that he could barely even walk. And those who did know (such as his mother and a few selected friends and family), were brought to private tears, praying this would be the performance of his life that would finally get him signed. A local suite at a posh nearby hotel, had even been reserved by Crawford, on behalf of Davis himself, in case Davis wanted to talk business the following morning. Which, of course, never took place, much to the bafflement of Crawford. Though as usual, to avoid generating unnecessary anticipation by onlookers who then might sink in their disappointment of him, he kept the nature of such dealings a secret; knowing that if he was soon signed, it would come as a welcomed surprise to those around him, but if he wasn’t, there was no need to even instill the possibility into their minds that he could be; a lesson he had learned very harshly with Spielberg.

            Though dismayed by never seeming to be capable of sufficing the labels with enough merit to propel a signing (even when pouring his entire life into it), one additional bootleg recording did manage to leak out and make its way onto the $49 demo at the time, which was another looped-in duet; this time with Jamie Bond entitled Heart Of Love that had been highly overlooked (along with the film in which it was from; another afterlife-themed favorite of Crawford’s) from the soundtrack to 1985’s The Heavenly Kid. Many versions of the $49 demo have this song excluded from its line-up, due to the lapse of time that existed between the first completed set of private recordings that would make up the demo (2002) … and this additional track (presumed to have been recorded sometime in 2005). Also overlooked, was the suggestion by Crawford himself, to supply Sony Pictures (who had just recently acquired the James Bond film franchise rights from MGM/UA at the time) with a new Bond song for the up-and-coming Bond movie that would introduce a new Bond alltogether; actor Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. Though a recording never came to fruition, Crawford does supposedly have within his massive catalog, an original Bond ballad, that has been loosely discussed for several years, ever since the release of Golden Eye in 1995 when actor Pierce Brosnan once occupied the role. This is also thought to have been the same timeframe that Spielberg, himself, finally received a copy Signature Place, and producer Paul Neesan became aware of the project while putting together a remake of Charlotte’s Web and three Smurfs movies for Paramount, with the first of the three due for release in 2009.

            Barely able to hold out any longer (much less walk!), Joshua Crawford finally underwent disc-replacement surgery in the fall of 2007, and to his own surprise, survived the procedure under the care of Dr. Scott Blumenthal in Plano, Texas; ironically the first ever doctor to have ever performed the first ever documented intervertebral disc arthroplasty in the United States; proving to many that no matter how poor the talented storyteller with the mint green eyes may have been, or how overlooked he had become to those that had the power to takes his stories to a broader audience, in the end, it does seem that he ends up working with the best of the best and can achieve some of the most awesome things, no matter how difficult the odds may be, or how unrealistic those around him once felt he and his goals were. Although the post-operative results of the surgery currently remain unclear, Crawford is said to have been finally able to start putting closure on the suicidal nightmare that had taunted him and his gregarious spirit for an entire five years, ever since first getting hit by the car in 2003 and stalling his move to Hollywood (in addition to Columbia Records’ signing of him) for a rather unprecedented half-decade. As a symbol of new beginnings, and to celebrate his victory of finally receiving the surgery, he recorded his first ever Christmas bootleg, with legendary jazz musician and A&M Records founder Herb Alpert, entitled, Let It Snow; a forgotten original instrumental from Alpert’s original 1968 album that surfaced on myspace for the 2007 Christmas season.

            Today, Joshua Crawford, if anything, represents the definition of survival in every sense of the word, and his spectators, who have developed over the course of a now record-breaking 15 years (all for an artist who has never been mass-marketed or extensively toured the world), eagerly await the completion of his destiny in reaching a broader audience.

            Already responsible for coining the words ‘ThrillerBaby’, ‘Rewatachability,’ and ‘Retrospective Art,’ (in addition to critics bestowing the titles ‘green eyed soul’ and ‘the master of melody’ over him), he currently resides in Texas, and supposedly, is still on a shoestring budget, with many of his townsfolk, both in Texas and New Mexico, hardly aware of who he really is; the man who gave a name to an entire generation of latchkey kids so that they wouldn’t be resorted to a mere letter, and their unique struggles with life, having been the very first generation to have grasped for air amongst a skyrocketing divorce rate, would never be forgotten or taken for granted in all of history from here on after.

            The Play Me recordings and the $49 Demo (also known as B.O.I.) have since gone on to pop up, more and more, in many rejected files of many record-labels and respectable public figures … and has continually re-surfaced beneath the cracks of the underground for other artists and historians to marvel at, who have been studying Crawford’s affect on pop culture (and its obvious affect on him!), ever since he first stepped in to Spielberg’s private office so long ago as merely a young kid who thought he’d be licking stamps for one of the world’s most renown directors … and ended up placing a stamp on his entire generation, the thriller babies, let alone, art itself, and the often lost definition of what true art really is.

            Though time will tell whether or not the industry ever chooses to promote an artist such as Crawford, his contributions to both the arts and a deeper appreciation and respect for what death and divorce can do to the world’s many children, in addition to his contributions to both science and spirituality itself, even if he is to never realize this in his own lifetime, remain undeniable.

            In 2007, upon discovering that author Peter S. Beagle was not receiving due royalties for the classic 1982 animated film adaptation of his book The Last Unicorn, a very beloved film by thrillerbabies throughout the world that heavily inspired the latchkey character of ‘Andy’ in Signature Place, Crawford ordered a copy of the 25^th anniversary edition release of the film from the author’s website (which was the only way Beagle could obtain even a small amount of the royalty, and still currently is to this day), and to Crawford’s surprise, he received a personally signed autographed version in his mailbox a few months later, with an inscription that simply said the following:

This would make Beagle the very first public figure to have ever used the word ThrillerBaby; a word Crawford had invented nearly nine years earlier for a generation that he felt history would surely miscategorize … if someone didn’t shed light on their unique and unmapped self-reliant trials and tribulations, even if Crawford, himself, was to never be acknowledged for his unheard of devotion to ever documenting an entire generation, all from his bed, over the course of six years, and with not a cent to his name while doing so, amidst an entire industry that kept telling him he was no good. Proving that perhaps, just perhaps, he had influenced even those beyond his own generation (Beagle was born in 1939), more than he could have ever believed he was capable of, and according to modern medicine, shouldn’t even be living.

Michael Jackson, himself, might just be very proud.

            Play Me, the most passed around demo in history to have never generated a signing, has been available from the independent-music website CdBaby.com since 2004, where it then gradually grew wings and spread down and throughout many mp3-download sites such as iTunes, where it can still be found today …

            Signature Place can be obtained through emailing the author at the book’s website, SignaturePlace.com, where allegedly every copy is hand signed and personalized by request …

            True remains buried in a drawer, other than its copyrighted edition with Library of Congress (Jimmy Stewart’s copy, which of course would’ve been the only known copy that might’ve ever been read outside Spielberg’s office, remains with Crawford, even though rumor has surfaced that he may one day donate it to the Jimmy Stewart museum in Philadelphia, whom he has rallied behind for the continual demanded re-release of The Magic Of Lassie) …
 
            and over 500 original songs (many of them ballads, including the notorious Bond song, as well as six original compositions written for Signature Place if and when it gets translated to film) remain unrecorded in any fashion … with the exception of a partially recorded copywritten rough-cut version of I Don’t Believe In Love, I Just Believe In God that was sent off to director Ridley Scott in the mid 1990s for a possible sequel to Blade Runner. (Lyrics of the song were briefly posted online by Warner Brothers during the much anticipated 5-disc briefcase-release for the film in the winter of 2007.)

The x-ray which contains the metal cross that should’ve burned through him
…remains heavily guarded.