Long Way Home: Son Henry Live at the 4th Avenue Theater

Y'all know I've been working on a live record since November of last year, tweaking the mixes and such. Well gang, everything is all together and the CD is going out for replication!

Last year we recorded the entire 'Blues for my Brother' show in Anchorage on November 11th at the 4th Avenue Theater. Mike Buzzinski captured the whole thing on a 24 track recorder for us, and the rough mixes were great. So, we've taken my entire set AND added some great songs from Lisa Monroe's and Ottomatic Slim's sets too. All in all it's over an hour of live material, exactly as it came down, including all the bad jokes, exploding amplifiers and stage comments too.

I think you'll like it. We'll have them back from manufacturing by the Globe gig in August. Not sure if we'll call it a CD release party, but it will be a party all the same!

Oh, the track listing:

1. Let the Good TImes Roll
2. Bad Boy
3. Long Way Home
4. Bring it on home to me
5. Messing with the kid
6. Hip shake
7. You were wrong
8. Help me
9. Beautician Blues

See you in Dundee this weekend!

Lap Steel workshop, Saturday morning at Dexter's

Just a quick heads-up for everyone!

I'm going to give a short lap-steel workshop at the Dundee Blues Bonanza this weekend. It will be Saturday Morning, July 1 at Dexter's. The times of the workshops are posted here:

http://www.dundeebluesbonanza.com

I'm not sure when mine is exactly during the suite of workshops. But it's really worth it to be there (I know I will) because Little Jimmy Reed is doing a workshop as well. Even if you're not a player, it might just be interesting to hear how this stuff works.

For my part, I'll show you how to get started playing lap style without any special equipment.

Ray Bonneville gig, blue lamp on Saturday...

Thanks to all of you that made it to the blue lamp on Saturday for the Ray Bonneville show, and thanks to Chris Simmonds for taking the risk and putting the show on. I knew it'd be a great show, and glad so many of you felt the same.

Ray played an awesome pair of sets. I don't normally get so excited about modern players, truthfully- you guys know my tastes run to the older pre-hendrix catalogue and all that scratchy old vinyl. But there's something powerful about the minimalism of his music- a guitar, a harmonica, a pair of feet and a great voice.

If you haven't checked out his music, look here:

http://www.raybonneville.com

And see what you think.

It's the simplicity, the directness of the songs and the complete lack of pretense that I like here. Mellow guy with some honest things to sing about. Not many of them around.

Web Site Overhaul

Just finished a minor overaul to my web site. I added some new images and stuff, so be sure and check it out! CLICK HERE

Acoustic CD

Well, I'm finally finishing my acoustic blues cd. I've gone back to the beginning, and I'm re-recording everything. So far I'm really hapy with the performances and the sounds- which is really saying something because my national is really hard to capture.

So far, I've got great takes of:

Hole in my soul
Deeper and Deeper
Long way home
Tom Rushen's blues

Tonight I'm recording guitar and lap steel parts for:

Sattelite
Luke's Blackcloud blues
Alone
Nuca Mas, Corazon
Water Rising
Love in Vain
One red rose

I'll keep you posted on the progress here, but so far it's going really well and really quickly. I'm shooting to have this CD available this fall, so I'm working hard and fast on this one!

The Blues and Beyond Club, Cupar

We had the good fortune to perform at the BLues and Beyond Club in Cupar on Friday evening. It was an easy 2-hour road trip from Aberdeen, and nice to get out of town to play for an audience of blues lovers.

Charlie Milne, Brian Poole and the rest of the gang are spear=heading the drive to keep blues alive in the Cupar area, and they do a great job. The club is held monthly at Watts Bar in downtown Cupar, a nice room that looks to seat around 100-150 comfortably. When we arrived they were busy hanging posters to add a real blues vibe to the house.

I started the evening off with a solo set that was well-received. 'Hole in my Soul' and 'Deeper and Deeper', two original songs, are really fast becoming favorites of mine to perform. I've also added a couple of Charlie Patton songs to the set as well. And, after several gigs wrestling with the sounds of my acoustic, the lap-steel acoustic guitar really seems to be settling in as well. All in all I really enjoyed that part of the night.

OK, from there it was off the to the 'lectric part of the night. Kicking off with 'Big Town Playboy', a nice lazy shuffle in E, the dance floor was packed. We thought we'd be playing a listening set at first, but it wasn't to be- dancing was the event of the night. No problem there, we easily slid into funky stuff, shuffles and some old Texas and Chicago blues. Lot's of originals as well. All in all the guys did great, and this line-up seems to get better, dramatically better, with every gig. By the time we reach Dundee we'll be razor sharp.

Thanks again to Charlie, Brian, Vivien and everyone else that made that show happen and for making us feel so welcome! Hope we see all of you again soon!

LIve Pictures from Drummonds