A new record label based in New York City is providing a platform for differently abled artists. It’s called Just Call Me By My Name, and its first release is out today, marking Disability Pride Month.
The debut offering, an EP titled “Just Call Me By My Name, Vol. 1,” highlights the talent and stories of the five artists signed to the label, rather than their disabilities. The EP spans a range of styles, from pop, rock and rap songs to an opera aria.
Ken Trush, the co-founder and managing director of Daniel’s Music Foundation, established the label in partnership with media-distribution company The Orchard. He hopes it will reshape how the public understands people with disabilities.
“We thought that music was the great equalizer,” Trush said. “We felt that if people, music lovers — and almost everyone’s a music lover — understood the talent, maybe judgment would lessen, and they would just sit back and enjoy the music.”
Daniel Trush, Ken Trush’s son and the namesake of Daniel’s Music Foundation, says there’s a message behind the label’s name: Focus on the person, not on the disability.
“Don’t call me a brain aneurysm survivor or a stroke victim,” he said. “Just call me Daniel, Dan, Danny, or Dan the Man from Manhattan.”
When Daniel was 12, he experienced weeks of back-to-back headaches. Ken says he thought nothing of it until he was watching Daniel play basketball one day.
“He took a shot,” Ken Trush said. “He held his head, and he started running towards me. And he just collapsed.”
Daniel had suffered five aneurysms and ended up in a coma for 30 days.
“The doctors did not expect him to survive,” the elder Trush said. “On the second night, they said, get your wife to say goodbye. He’s not going to make it.”
Ken says he sang and played music for Daniel while he was hospitalized.
Daniel, now 39, says his connection to music strengthened his memory and helped him relearn how to walk and talk.
In 2006, the Trush family…
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