Celebrity Dialogue is the brilliant index to the latest interviews and news with major celebrities from film, music, television and sports, as well as leading politicians, journalists and business people.

Jan 5th, 2011

Rosmarie Ashley is a talented musician and a management expert. This combination of two unrelated and quite opposite fields makes her unique. She has experience in communications, training and marketing. On the other hand, she is known as "tude Vox Ro" as an artist and released her first album called "From Primal To Divine". Rosemarie combines her two talents as being the Director Marketing at Gen-Ray Records devoted to producing inspirational songs.

CelebrityDialogue: How was your childhood like?

Rosemarie: At a very young age, I began to discover inconsistencies in the way our world works.  Religious people who claimed to worship a loving and compassionate god demonstrated intolerance and acted hateful to anyone that looked different.  Governments pursued peace through acts of war.  Politicians were never held accountable for verbal contracts made in campaign promises.  None of this made sense to me.  I always spoke my mind and asked tough questions that no one could answer to my satisfaction.

I began to study spirituality and personal growth at 10 years old, learning creative visualization and self hypnosis.  I read about the soul, soul mates, near-death experiences, astral projection, dream analysis, etc.  I knew I had a role in ushering in the impending consciousness evolution of humanity, but no idea what that would be.

At 12 years old, I took a Transcendental Meditation class.  At 16, I spent a week at a commune, attending a life defining workshop about taking personal responsibility for my thoughts and emotions.  The adults said life would be so much easier for me, learning to love myself and others at such a young age.  They had no idea how difficult it was to be so different than most everyone else.

CelebrityDialogue: What is your passion in life?

Rosemarie: Singing songs with uplifting messages and powerful music.

CelebrityDialogue: Tell us about your education.

Rosemarie: My formal education is in Business Administration, specializing in the Management of Corporate Change for my Master’s degree.

My musical education started at home.  My father was Music Director for our church from the time I was born until I was 12.  Between lessons from him and my chorus teachers, I learned the basics of reading and performing music.  The rest of my education has been on-the-job training.

CelebrityDialogue: Tell us about your first job.

Rosemarie: I started babysitting at 12 years old.  I developed a good reputation in the neighborhood because in addition to playing with and supervising the kids, I straightened the house and washed dishes.

CelebrityDialogue: What are your professional/management specialties?

Rosemarie: Organization Design and Professional Development is my specialty, stemming from improving processes and communication channels at medium and large client corporations.  I’ve also spent many years in consultative sales, marketing and small-business management.

CelebrityDialogue: You have a lot of experience in cost reduction. How can a company keep its costs low while still attaining customer satisfaction and business excellence?

Rosemarie: There’s a short and long answer to that question.  The short answer is better communication.  That includes forecasting, planning, scheduling, following up in short intervals and reporting.  The reporting needs to work back around into forecasting/planning/scheduling based on deviations from volume expectations.  Employees need to be an integral part of the equation, empowered to make and implement suggestions that work for the company as a whole as well as external stakeholders such as customers and the community.  This reduces unproductive time, increases morale, fosters continuous improvement, encourages repeat business, stimulates referrals and reduces the need for elaborate public relations campaigns.

The long answer gets into empowering consumers to make rational, intelligent choices based on accurate information, not emotional decisions based on deception.  We need to stop thinking we have a free and fair market or a government that implements the will of the people.  We don’t.  What we have is a system that rewards deception and fraud, punishing only the few relatively low-level entrepreneurs that are out of favor with the ruling class.

We have a greed-based system from the upper echelon of elite powers down to the average consumer.  We have grandiose propaganda campaigns called advertising, designed to hypnotize the masses into emotional purchases based on empty promises.  Consumers are programmed to demand the lowest price without considering quality, durability, sustainability, social justice, the value of a clean environment and humane treatment.  The legal system does not guarantee justice but rewards the party with the most resources and strongest alliances.

The long answer is businesses need to operate within a fair and just system to financially prosper by providing exceptional products and service.  We have a lot of work to do.

CelebrityDialogue: How did Gen-Ray Records came into existence?

Rosemarie: Every step of the process was presented by what I call Divine Intervention.  Feeling and acting from a love space puts me into a receptive mode.

It started when I transferred from being a corporate trainer into sales; leaving a good salary for straight commission work.  I expected to spend a couple of years gaining expertise, finish my MBA and jump back into Training.  But that’s not how it happened.

I became an expert in my field with an impeccable reputation and later met my husband in the industry.  He and I opened our own branch office.  One of the employees he hired (despite my objection) was a local rapper who just released his first album.  We eventually became friends.  A year later, he quit to cut an album with Universal Studios in LA.

After I wrote my first song, I requested and was granted an audience with my rapper friend.  That led to a meeting with his exceptionally talented, highly regarded producer/engineer who agreed to work with me.  We clicked.  I publicly released my song, got great responses and was inspired to create new work, then guided to release and market my first album, “From Primal to Divine”.  We’ve collaborated with 2 additional composers from the United Kingdom and released 8 more singles since then.

Gen-Ray Records sprouted from the seed of transformative music with ‘tude Vox Ro (my stage name) as the premier artist.  Eventually, we intend to add like-minded artists, collaborate with transformational speakers, license our work as film theme songs and open a non-profit division for community theater musicals and spiritual counseling services.

CelebrityDialogue: What is primary goal of this organization?

Rosemarie: To create, produce, record, perform and distribute songs that inspire, motivate and empower every day people to transform their lives and the planet by reinforcing universal success principles through the power of music.

CelebrityDialogue: Why music?

Rosemarie: Listening to music suspends the mind’s gate-keeper/judgment function, allowing suggestions to be more readily accepted into the subconscious.  That’s why movies have sound tracks, advertisement has jingles and churches have hymns.  The beat of the music combined with the message of the lyrics hypnotically influences emotion, activates thought and incites action.  There is no tool more powerful for transformation than music.

CelebrityDialogue: What is the essence behind your music?

Rosemarie: Success principles and universal spiritual truth communicated through entertainment.

CelebrityDialogue: How do you combine your management skills with your musical skills?

Rosemarie: With many years in management and being a small business owner in another industry, I learned to be organized, determine what needs to be done and either do it or hire someone who can do it better/quicker/easier.  Resourcefulness and the ability to learn new things are of key importance.  Completing anything is about breaking it down into small pieces, making plans, executing plans, measuring progress, re-evaluating and adapting the plan.  That is as true of the artistic work (song writing, recording and performing) as it is of the business work (marketing, distribution and accounting).  I’m accustomed to assuming many roles.  The experience challenges me to develop diverse skills and acquire new expertise.

CelebrityDialogue: Do you consider yourself more of a management professional or a musician?

Rosemarie: To be successful in business, one has to be creative, a good communicator and have the ability to influence thoughts, feelings and actions – like an artist.  To be a successful artist, one has to responsibly maintain financial records, manage schedules and organize activities – like a business person.  When I’m writing and recording songs, I’m an artist, working from my right brain.  When I work with marketing, accounting and distribution, I’m a business woman, working the left brain.  I am fortunate to be competent in both sides of the equation.

CelebrityDialogue: Tell us about your CD “From Primal to Divine”. How can people listen to your songs?

Rosemarie: "From Primal to Divine" is a collection of 17 songs in a wide variety of styles.  The songs express struggles and triumphs encountered on a journey of personal growth and transformation.  The album reflects the full spectrum of human emotion including primal/survival emotions (passion, fear & grief), human emotions (peace, love & happiness) as well as divine emotions (joy, bliss & oneness).  They are a source of comfort and springboard for productive action.

We provide free streaming to site members @ www.SassyAlternativeMusic.com/FreeStreaming (membership is free).  People can buy a CD @ www.SassyAlternativeMusic.com or mp3 download @ www.SassyAlternativeMusic.com/FreeStreaming.

CelebrityDialogue: Where do you go from here?

Rosemarie: There are literally millions of people doing different things to transform our planet and her people for the good of all.  Music/entertainment is instrumental in shaping thought and inciting action.  We’re positioned to create a distribution network by collaborating with like-minded interests, performing at relevant events and organizing transformational action items. This includes a variety of individual empowerment events and global reform.  From there, we grow to awaken, inspire and motivate more people, creating a critical mass focused on replacing fear with love/compassion.

CelebrityDialogue: Thank you so much Rosemarie. It was a pleasure.

Rosemarie: Thank you.  The pleasure is mine.