Dear Friends, Greetings from Nashville where we have just finished recording a new CD. It's been incredibly interesting and fun. Early last fall we met with Eric Peltoniemi at Red House Records who suggested that we come to Nashville and record as a way to follow up our last CD, "Radio Songs." So we started checking around and, in a fortuitous moment late in the process, we sent an email to Tim O'Brien asking him if he'd be interested. To our immense pleasure Tim responded favorably. So here are with another CD in the can all excited about what we've come up with. We recorded eleven new original songs and one old country chestnut, all of which sound as if they need to exist. The project has been engineered by Dave Ferguson who's list of recording projects is a mile long - single spaced. He's a real character and a master at the recording console. We've gotten to play with some great musicians, Dennis Crouch, John Jarvis, Jeff Taylor, Jerry Douglas, Ray Bonneville, Kenny Malone and, of course, the incomparable Tim O'Brien. Tim had terrific ideas concerning song selection, he helped us get a good feel on all the songs and then he played fabulous parts on four or five instruments. We could go on and on, and in fact it's hard not to, but we want to send this missive out into cyberspace before we get in the car and drive home. The CD is scheduled to be mixed and mastered later this month and will be released in August. Once we get a title for it, get pictures taken and have the cover designed we'll have our twenty-first CD ready for consumption. We'll keep you posted. We've been flying under the radar and keeping a low profile lately. We did do a couple of radio shows, The Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour in January and A Prairie Home Companion in February. But other than that we stayed close to the home fires to get ready for this recording project. To tell you the truth we feel fortunate to be able to take time off the road every once in a while. But now we're ready to get busy and get back out on the blacktop. We're looking forward to playing tunes in front of people as opposed to listening intently to them in the studio and looking for instrumental mistakes and notes off pitch. This weekend we and Jim Watson will be joined by Kevin Maul for some gigs in upstate New York. Then we'll hook up with Chris Brashear for two days in Austin, TX at South By Southwest followed by a tour through the midwest and Texas starting in late March. Hopefully we'll see you at one of the stops along the way. Remember, music makes you smarter.
Your pals,
March 7 - Cobbleskill, NY - Golding Park Cafe, 103 High Street - 7:30pm - |